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Copigiit};" fMk. 



COPXRIGHT DEPOSm 



WAR AND 
LAUGHTER 



WAR AND 
LAUGHTER 



BY 

JAMES OPPENHEIM 

AUTHOR OF "songs FOR THE NEW AGE" 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1916 






Copyright, 1916, by 
The Century Co. 



Published, October, igi6 




^a A 4 J 6 3 (7,0 



CONTENTS 
MORNING 

PAGE 

Morning and I 5 

On Morning Hills 7 

Larkspur 8 

Good-Morning lo 

The Red Month 12 

NOON 

The Snare 19 

Quick as a Hummingbird 24 

No End of the Song 25 

Behind the Mirror 26 

Love-Songs 27 

NIGHT 

When Night Is Still 31 

The Coming of Evening 34 

New Year's Eve 37 

LAUGHTER 

Laughter 41 

The Greatest 48 

To Nietzsche 49 

Report on the Planet, Earth 50 

Immoral ^^ 

Creed 57 

A Funeral 66 

Said the Sun 68 



Contents 

PAGE 

The Uninspired Laborer 69 

East and West 70 

The Wise 77 

City of Myself 78 

Earth-Bound 81 

The Weak Shall Fail 82 

Symbols 83 

The Planetary Animals 84 

Old Sorrow 85 

"Man, Born of Woman" 87 

Two Musics 93 

A Girl in the Subway 94 

The Outdoor Motion Picture Show 95 

Woods 96 

The Centaur 99 

The Gray Mothers 101 

Steps of the Sky 103 

The Encircling 104 

The Adventurer 107 

RHYMES 

Sonnets 113 

What Sings the Earth ? 125 

Sun-Down 127 

Rise, for the Day 128 

Tryst with the Sea 130 

WAR 

1914 — And After 135 

Out ! 150 

Dancing Boys 151 

Earth's Laughter 152 

The New God 153 

Slums 169 

A Wise Woman 171 

Under the Bell 174 



Contents 

PAGE 

Jottings 175 

The Unripened Old 178 

The Wine-Bowl 179 

In the Furnished Room House 180 

In the Subway 181 

The Bugle Call 182 

Shine, Lights o' London 183 

Sun-Up 184 

Spring's Orchestra 185 

The Discord 187 

Among Enemies 188 

The Boy 190 

Dangerous Days. , 191 

Girl on the Street 192 

In What Places Apart 193 

Adventures in Darkness 194 

March Night 203 

Peace 205 

GOLDEN DEATH 

Golden Death 209 

THE FUTURE 

The Future 215 



WAR AND 
LAUGHTER 




MUSICAL PIECES 

1 — Songs of the Morning 
2 — Songs of Noon 
3 — Songs of Night 



MORNING 




/IDornittQ ant) H 



MORNING AND I 
"\ ^7HEN the corn is full of glory from the wind- 

V V play, 

Morning, the blue-caped singer, 
Crosses his legs on the hills, and with sun-eye wink- 
ing, 
Sings me this song: 

Young laggard ! 

Why laugh as you loaf alone in the garden? 

Why laugh •? 

It 's live o'clock, and no one 's up: 

Saving, of course, the chicks, 

Saving, of course, the calves . . . 

No one 's up. 

Why laugh as you loaf alone in the garden'? 

I pick a seckel pear from the grass. 

Bite it, and wink back slowly at laughing Morning, 

And looking careless, 

Sing him this stave: 



/IDorning ant> H 



Old Lover: 

I laugh because of a mighty secret that's 

mine . . . 
That 's why . . . 

Is it five o'clock? Then let it be . . . 
Let the chicks go pecking the corn, 
And the calves go cropping the grass . . . 
Am I alone*? 
Oh, only alone with a mighty secret that's 

mine . . . 

Then Morning bursts out laughing : twenty birds are 

startled to song ... 
And he and I in the silence 
Wink once again to each other . . . 
Had n't he been blowing kisses to Earth millions of 

years before I was born"? 



On /IDotning Ibills 



ON MORNING HILLS 

JPLASH of all sunny loveliness, 
■*■ Dance of the larkspur, 
Dance of the larkspur . . . 

{Nod, little bells. 
Tease the vagrant honey-plunderers. 
Lure the tiger-bellied bees . . .) 

Wind laughs: I laugh: 

Off, countryside, be off on a gale, 

And the odors of the garden 

Blow, spiced and cool, like honey on my lips 

Flash of blue heavens and the hawk lost 
Lonely in the blue, 
Flash of green hill-tops and the cattle 
Fenced in the fields . . . 
Flash of all sunny loveliness: 
Wind laughs: I laugh: 
For the cool laughter echoes 
Of my love in the cool silent house. 

7 



Xarftsput 



LARKSPUR 



B 



LUE morning and the beloved, 
The hill-garden and I . . . 



Blue morning and the beloved, 
Leaning, laughing and plucking. 
Plucking wet roses . . . 

(She among the roses, 
I among the larkspur, 

Bob-white, warbler, meadowlark, bobolink, 
Song, sun. 
And still morning air.) 

I snipped off a larkspur blossom of china-blue 

And held it, 

A blossom against the sky . . . 

And heaven opened out 

In one small flower-face . . . 



Xarftgput 

And the beloved, 

Plucking roses, plucking roses, old-fashioned roses, 

Lifted her face 

With eyes of china-blue. 

(She among the roses, 
I among the larkspur, 

Bee-hum, brown-mole, downy chick, hum- 
mingbird : 
Light, dew. 
And laughter of my love.) 



6oot)»/Il>orntnG 



GOOD-MORNING 

ARROW-SUN! 
Morning, the bold young giant 
Sticks you in his bent bow of shining blue 
And shoots you toward the zenith . . . 

(This way, Wind, forget-me-nots are little : 
Stoop and uplift them . . . 
Come up, Mole, from your subterranean 

plunder, 
The juicy tulip roots . . . 
Dew along the gossamer, twinkle in the 

garden-grass . . . 
For one is coming hither. 
One is coming hither. 
The darling of the morn . . .) 

She comes: in the doorway I see her . . . 

She steps out, — Good-morning! 

My rival, the gale, is ahead of me, kissing her 

lips . . . 
Arrow-sun from the heaven darts 

10 



(5ooC)*/IDorning 



Confusing with gold her glance . . 
Bee thinks her lips are a rose-bud: 
Brush him off, darling . . . 
And come, come hither . . . 
I know an angle in the fence 
Where lovers may say good-morning 



11 



Zbc IRct) /iDontb 



THE RED MONTH 
1 



GOLDEN morning- 
Hello! hello! 
Echoes of song — the meadowlark twittering, 
Spill of the swallow. 



Dance on the slopes of bright dew, and come singing. 

Beloved girl . . . 

On the grass red with apples, come dancing, come 

running . . . 
Hark, how the thrush sings! 
Mark, how the wind leaps! 
Morning is here. 
Bold morning is here. 



3 

Come across the grasses, 
Come swift across the grasses, 

12 



Uhc 1Re& /iDontb 



Quicker I 

quicker ! 

leap with your hands up: 
Dance with knees up, 
Gold hair flying, 
White teeth bare . . . 



For we shall go laughing straight through the or- 
chard and scatter 

Dew lit with sun, 

And we shall go romping beneath green boughs low 
with apples 

And over the stone-wall, 

Scrambling through briers. 

Race in the woods — the wind-loud woods — 

The woods with the dead leaves flying . . . 

5 

Your cheeks, beloved, are fresher than pansies to 

the touch, 
Dewy pansies . . . 
Pluck handfuls of wild grapes. 
And here *s a grape for you, 
And here *s a grape for me — 

13 



ZTbe IRet) /iDontb 



Tart, 

sharp, 

to crush against the palate, 
Staining red lips blue . . . 



The thrush — is he up? 

The mole — peers he forth? 

Is the young dog running in the scent of the squirrel ? 

Who has washed the heavens blue 

And set the sun there? 

O make a cup of your hands and in the clearing 

Catch cups of sunshine, loveliest, for me . . . 

7 

And come now in coolness where the thin stream 

tinkles, 
And the brown wren dips her wings . . . 
O my beautiful! 

Come now and gathered be all in an armful. 
Under leafy oak-boughs, here where the wasps sing, 
O my beautiful ! 

Kiss my lips and let me know 
That the ripe month — the red month — 
September the glorious, 

14 



I 



Uhc 1Re& /iDontb 



Has tapped the gold-wine of the sun 
And sluiced it into our hearts . . . 
And piped it into our hearts, darling 
So happy, happy are we. 



8 



And hark ! the warbler ! 
He whistles! whistles! 
This kiss, and thJs kiss! 
Golden morning! 
Hello! hello! 



15 



NOON 




Ube Snare 



THE SNARE 

OLD songs snared me back, 
Echoes of a woman's voice heard in the misty 
luminous morning of my life, 
The smell of warm new milk, 
And of apples turning to cider on the ground, 
And I was lured by the light that a hummingbird 

shook from his wings, 
There among the honeysuckle, there among the yel- 
low fragrance . . . 
And the brooding and hot sunlight that slanted with 

dancing motes in my top-floor room, 
And I was afraid of a big black dog. 
And afraid of death. 
And shrieked "Mother" . . . 



She was the love-woman: my Mother . . . 
The little child found her his nourishing Earth, 
His stars of dream, his sun of passion . . . 
She was religion: she was God . . . 
Long and long she folded me in her soul, 

19 



XTbe Snare 



And there I wandered, 
In a snare of old songs. 

And there became two of me after that: 

An outer and inner self: 

A world-self passing for a man, 

But in me I bore the little child who would not 

grow up . . . 
And when the blows of the world beat on me, 
And I ate of the sour bread of disillusionment, 
And swallowed the gall of frustration, 
I sank deep, deep into my soul, 
A little child again. 
In a snare of old songs, 
And the smell of new warm milk. 
And the arms of my love-woman, my Mother, folded 

about me . . . 

No woman's face could please me among women. 
And I could not love as a man loves : 
For I was seeking among women my Mother, 
Who was a myth out of childhood, and a legend 
sundered from life. 

And a sweet woman and a young waited me at the 
door, 

20 



Ube Snate 

And a struggle began in my soul : 
Whether I should love her as a man, 
Or love her as a child. 

I kissed her lips . . . 

(Ah, when did I dream that kisses could be so sweet, 
so sweet*?) 

I gathered her in my arms, 

And beheld swimming across her blue-eyed counte- 
nance 

A light as of heavens opening . . . 

A light I had never seen . . . 

It was the love-light ... it was the love-light . . . 

And my soul arose to love. 

When lo, 

Old songs snared me back, 

The smell of warm new milk, 

And the arms of my love-woman, my Mother, folded 

about me . . . 
Passion died: 
Yea, though my soul wept, passion died . . . 

And I knew that the hour of the sacrifice had come. 
The hour of the slaying of the child, 

21 



TTbe Snare 

When my own soul must slay the sweet child within 

me, 
And overcome my Mother, 
Freeing the man. 

I must put away from me the snare of old songs. 
And the echoes of the luminous early days, 
Hummingbird radiance and the scent of honey- 
suckle. 
And slaughter my God on a crucifying Cross, 
And unloose my love-woman's arms so tightly, di- 
vinely binding me in . . . 

And I must meet the world face to face, 

And grow tougher than its blows, 

And mightier than its besieging hosts. 

And give myself to new vague songs of reality . . . 

And I must come from under the wings of this beau- 
tiful woman . . . 

And when I run for comfort and help, I must run to 
my own self . . . 

Free even from her that I love . . . 

22 



Ube Snare 



And I must go down to the darkness of the waters of 

my Soul, 
And make a secret struggle, 
Of which I can tell no man . . . 
Down there the sacrifice is made . . . 
Down there the child is slain . . . 

"What breaks in my heart, breaks open? 
What wild light? what plunging seas'? 
What hardy odor of the balsams on the peak? 
What promise is this of a god in my soul ? 
Blow, wind, blow her hair back. 
Smite with your elemental radiance her eyes, O sun, 
Sea-salt, quicken her lips, 
And O, great Earth, 

Pour your wild electricity up through her blood . . . 
Earth calls to Earth, 

The sea-gulls are beginning to cry in the gross dark- 
ness over the ocean . . . 
Dawn's beginning: 
And I come . . . 
Her lover comes. 



23 



(Sluicft as a jliummin0bir& 



QUICK AS A HUMMINGBIRD 

QUICK as a hummingbird is my love, 
Dipping into the hearts of flowers — 

She darts so eagerly, swiftly, sweetly. 
Dipping into the flowers of my heart . . . 



24 



Bo En& ot tbe Song 



NO END OF THE SONG 

OOSE of the hills, hearken: 

^ ^ There is no end to my song of you, for there 

is no end to my love . . . 
Who shall count the beauties a sun's ray falls on? 
And who shall count the possibilities of a babe who 

opens his eyes on a new planet*? 
And who shall count the songs that a loved woman 

sings with her body and spirit when her lover 

is listening? 



25 



BebinD tbe /iDirrot 



BEHIND THE MIRROR 

T LOOKED long into my love's eyes, 

^ And I saw in each a fringe of the dark green 

hills on the horizon, 
And a patch of heaven bluer than their blue, 
And the tint of a field was there, 
But in the center of each, darker than the dark pupil. 
Sat I myself, gazing out tranquilly with her soul 
and her love. 



26 



Xove^Songs 



LOVE-SONGS 

Ayr Y tiny hands not being able to weave a garland 
"*■ ' ^ of the stars, 
I made curious songs for my beloved, 
To crown her with. 

For it seemed to me that my beloved dwelt in Para- 
dise, 
Somewhere with Beatrice of the Italian song, 
And that a ring of stars would be a poor enough halo 
for her radiant head. 

Ah, but thus I wronged my love for my beloved : 
For I made her a spirit, and left the greatest songs 

of all unsung: 
The true love-songs that a man sings with his lips, 

his eyes, his flesh: 
Not to a heavenly spirit, but to a human woman . . . 

So now I brush away Paradise and stars and curious 

songs like hindering cobwebs, 
And see that my beloved is a breathing and laughing 

and passionate body, 
27 



Xove^Sonas 



And that the iris of her eyes is blue, and the pupils 
dilated and wonderfully deep, 

And that her lips are firm and moist and sweet, 

And her hands grasp tinglingly. 

And the skin of her neck and shoulders is cool and 
fresh, 

And that there is a fragrance about her that is love- 
lier to me than meadows of sun-dried hay, 

And that her laughter is irresistible. 

And that she in my arms is as much of glory and 
ecstasy as a man may hold. 

Wherefore Paradise is unnecessary, 

And the flame of stars works no more transforma- 
tions than the flame of her lips meeting mine, 

And the miracle of her actuality, her breathing flesh, 
and her contact with me. 

Is as great a miracle as space may produce. 

And so far as I am concerned, a greater. 



28 



NIGHT 




Wibcn TRigbt is Still 



WHEN NIGHT IS STILL 
1 



C WEET wind 

Plays in the elms, 
A frog 
Croaks : 
Night is still. 



Let us sit hidden, beloved, from all save the stars. 
And in the summer evening 
Alone — (the others are gone) 
Open our hearts, clinging together. 
Our words like song in silence . . . 

3 

A rustle down the garden ! 
Is it she of the diaphanous raiment. 
The rain-girl, South-Wind, 

Slipping bough to bough and with quick fingers 
Turning every leaf about? 

31 



WiDcn mtabt i3 still 



She 's stolen every perfume 

Of the garden, the woods, 

And now she blows your hair out, love. 

With fragrance on my cheeks. 

4 

Thick walks of stars ! 

Yonder 's the Great Bear, and low hangs the Dip- 
per, 
Mars burns red; that is Orion: 
I would I had the Pleiades to hang as a necklace 
Here about your throat . . . 



Cool hand in mine, 

Cool arm about my neck . . . 

I draw you close into my embrace and press 

Cool lips to cool lips . . . 

The world is lost . . . 

Only a wild song sings in our ears, and a throbbing 

Of radiance dazzles our eyes . . . 

We are alone . . . the others are gone . . . 



32 



Mben niQbt is Still 



The gardener has been hoeing the Earth : 

How it reeks ! 

The house is haunted by its own emptiness ! 

It creaks behind us . . . 

There 's not a man or woman between here and the 

farm-light faint on the hills . . . 
Just Earth, the conferring of stars, South-Wind and 

us . . . 

7 

This is the summer night, 
And this is love . . . 
O harmony past understanding ... 
We are as one song sung by two voices when the 
night is still. 



33 



Ubc Comfna of Bvenin^ 



THE COMING OF EVENING 
1 

TJAS there come 

*- * Silence of the snow*? 

Has there fallen 

Silver of dusk from the low snow-blown clouds 

To fold around the golden circles of the lamps? 

Do I hear 

Young girls laughing, boys calling? 

O evening solemn, 

Solemn Sunday 's done : 

And stillest Sabbath ends with chiming of bells, 

Church-bells, 

Bells benignly beating . . . 



Red houses are gray in the dark, 

And the windows 

Grow oblongs of yellow . . . 

34 



Ube Comina ot Evening 



In snow-mist the city is hidden : 

Warm in the darkness 

Families gather for supper in light that is 

golden . . . 
Olden 

The charm is : 
Glowing, the heart 
Opens to evening . . . 



My love . . . 

My own, my darling ... 

Far and far 

Are you . . . 

I wait ... I long ... 

4 

And I remember now, as a music 

Half-forgotten, comes surging back — 

And I remember now, as a dream of childhood — 

Remember now. 

Logs in hearth and the gold flames tongueing. 

And all the long day, all the long day hidden, 

Hidden from the world, 

35 



XCbe Coming of Bventng 



We two there before the hearth-fire golden, 
Hand in hand, 

We two there before the hearth-fire golden, 
Cheek to cheek ... 

And I know now that it was glorious Sunday: 

I know now we drank the deep bliss of loving; 

I know now how far, darling, 

Are you . . . 

How far . . . how far and far . . . 



5 

Church-bells chime. 

Bells benignly beating . . . 

Solemn Sunday's done. 



36 



IRew l^ear's Eve 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 

WE age inevitably: 
The old joys fade and are gone: 
And at last comes equanimity and the flame burn- 
ing clear . . . 

We see deeply into the human heart: 
Its strange and terrible desires: 
Youth's longing, age's wistfulness . . . 

We seem so often to destroy our deepest happiness, 
To work for ourselves cruel pangs, heartbreaking 

pains . . . 
Misunderstanding, misunderstood, we move and are 

moved . . . 

And he we despise is not so very unlike us, 

And he we envy may envy us; 

Tangled, groping, we toil, we build, we hope for 

great and enduring joy. 
And often deceived, find bitterness . . . 



37 



IRew l^ear's Bve 



They that love, part: 

They that are parted, cannot discover each other: 

Disease and poverty, crime and war, and a host of 

ills 
Mar the advance . . . 

Who presses us as through a sieve of pain, and why^ 
Why this Earth-experience*? this unescapable agony'? 

Come, fill the glass, and you kiss mine, and I kiss 

yours, 
And a sip of each other's wine . . . 
And then our lips, close together . . . 

O my beloved. 

For you alone, if for nothing else, 

My life is a miracle . . . 

In the stormy tangle, the flame burns clear; 

And it is blessing 

To see so deep within the human heart. 



38 



LAUGHTER 




Xaugbter 



LAUGHTER 

T SAY Yes, 

* Yes to the dance of feet in the Spring, 

Yes to the shouts of children. 

Yes to Laughter! 

Laughter, last of the gods. 
And of them the greatest, 
Yes, say I, and salute you! 

Man 's the bad child of the Universe . . . 

I know that . . . 

Am I not a man? 

Wicked is my wickedness : an impudent girl : 

We dance on the housetops when the moon is aloft. 

We dance in the street, in the public glare. 

But who knows us*? who sees US'? 

My visible feet are still, and my face is solemn. 

As Sunday is the Sabbath, a day of holy unctions, 
I said, I will go visit the solemn ones : 

41 



Xaupbtet 

They whose mouths are turned down at the corners, 

and whose glassy eyes never wink nor gleam : 
I will visit, not the worshipers in a Church: 
I will go visit the fishes . . . 

Crowded was the aquarium: 

On one side the glass, the people: on the other, the 
solemn ones . . . 

I stood and marveled at the miracle of their grav- 
ity .. . 

You see, they wave their fins, open their mouths. 

And hang suspended in bubbling waters; 

The circle of their flat eyes heaves a little without 

lids: 
They are neither happy nor unhappy . . . 
I knew they were fishes: but did they know they 

were fishes'? 
No, nor even that I, watching them, was a man! 

O dear old Universe, you big clumsy giant who find 

a whole sky too small to sprawl over. 
You star-bellied monster. 
Who outstare me with a Galaxy of eyes, 

42 



XauQbter 

I, so little, your least tremor would crush me and 

my Earth, 
I, your bad child, 
Wink at you, and laugh . . , 

Why so solemn'? 

Why such millenniums of laughterless struggle*? 

Did you care only to increase life, 

To push up fiercely from Sun into Earth, from 

Earth into animals, 
From ape into man*? 
Your stars shine, your waters roar, your earthquakes 

quake, and the noses of your cats sneeze, 
How gravely! 

Not that there is not sportiveness and joy . . . 
Surely cubs play, and the love-season sounds with 

the joy of the birds, 
The young colts gallop in the meadow, 
The rooster crows, 
The whisper of new green leaves has gladness in 

it . . . 
But when was joy laughter? 



43 



Xau^btet 

Old Universe, you are one great flood, and the ani- 
mals are all under your waters; 

Only Man has poked his head up above the surface, 
and taken a look around, 

And seen you, and your children, and his own ab- 
surd self. 

And opening his mouth wide, has wickedly 
laughed . . . 

For Joy is sacred: and Laughter is wicked: 
Joy is inside Life: Laughter is outside: 
The lark sings because he must, 
Man laughs because he is free. 

Why does the porpoise jump out of the water, and 

splash? 
A part of his solemn business! 
But the folks crowded around his circular tank, 

shook the roof with shouting laughter . . . 

Consider us. Creation! 

Though you took patient eras beyond counting to 

create us. 
Somehow we are enough detached from you, and 

from your purpose. 
To look back, and laugh . . . 

44 



XauQbter 

Worse than that! 

Consider how your bad children get around you . . . 

We put our fingers to our noses and wiggle them at 
you, 

We make mating sterile, 

We drink alcohol, 

We live in places of stone and steel, 

We tear our Earth up, 

We float where we were meant to sink: 

You think to darken us with the night, so we light 
lamps : 

You think to freeze us with the cold, so we start 
fires: 

And our ha-ha shakes our theaters to the amazement 
of dumb heaven. 

Are we not cynical, uproarious, obscene and impu- 
dent? 

Do we not proclaim ourselves the top-notch of the 
world? 

Behold, though you are terrible. 
We laugh back, and treat you, at best, as a jolly 
comrade. 



45 



Xauabter 

But it 's the wickedest child that is the darling . . . 

We are your darlings, are we not? 

Truly now fine impudent young gods have risen to 

companion you, 
Yes, to transcend you, and by transcending, bring 

you to new fulfilments . . . 

For sublimity has bungled . . . 

It simply spewed out Life, haphazard, 

Till by divine accidents, and out of the deadliest 

purposes. 
We were born : to see : to know : to take hold : 
To laugh away fear. 

Laughter saves us: 

Still more than half of us is buried in the quick- 
sands. 

Still we suffer. 

Still we doubt and are damned . . . 

But comes the moment when we take a square look 
at ourselves. 

And seeing how absurd our antics are, laugh and are 
healed . . . 

And so, perhaps, the laughing animal shall save cre- 
ation ... 

46 



Xaugbtet 

Already the wizened stars must be worried, dumb- 
founded, 

To catch that raucous cackle and chortle from the 
worthless Earth . . . 

That mirth in the trenches of the dead, 

That noise of relatives eating ham sandwiches after 
the funeral is over, 

That chuckle of the rebuilders of cities following 
the earthquake, 

That wheezing gay cough of the dying consumptive 
over the doctor's joke . . . 

And now, Creation, I think your very purpose was 

in this: 
That your great face struggled for ages on ages to 

break in a smile . . . 
We are that smile . . . 

So I say Yes, 

Yes to the dance of feet in the Spring, 

Yes to the shouts of children, 

Yes to laughter! 

Laughter, last of the gods, 
And of them the greatest, 
Yes, say I, and salute you! 

47 



Ube Greatest 



T 



THE GREATEST 

HE greatest are the simplest . 
They need be nothing else . . . 



It is the rest who have to play parts, 
To seem what they are not. 



48 



Uo 1Fliet3scbe 



TO NIETZSCHE 

A MAZING anchorite, 
-**■ Sick god, 

Why were you an arrow of longing for the Super- 
man'? 



Not even Man is here: 

Children in masks and savages with manners 

Is all that we are — 

We are striving to be — ^human . . . 

And even — all-too-human ... 

You ask for a Superman? 
First then produce — a Man. 



49 



•Report on tbe planet, Bartb 



REPORT ON THE PLANET, EARTH 

'yO the Sky-Council on Star, Riga, Milky Way: 
'*• I have to report : 

That detailed by the Council I fell on a beam of 
light down through interstellar space 

A year and a day, 

Dropping through rings of worlds, and past white 
flakes of suns, 

And found at last, in a cranny of the crowded uni- 
verse. 

The Solar System, 

And investigated one of its small planets, the Earth. 

These are my findings: 

The inhabitants thereof are not very game: 

They complain and whine a great deal : 

They cannot stand pain: 

They object to work: 

They think of nothing but themselves : 

No concern for these crowded heavens around 

them: 
Nor Earth's purpose in the skies: 

50 



IReport on tbe ©lanet, Bartb 



Quarrelsome, they slaughter each other with in- 
genious death-dealers: 

They bind themselves with strange chains to one an- 
other : 

They fear the new: they fear the old: they fear 
birth : they shrink from death : 

Those that have visions among them are persecuted : 

They applaud any one who makes them forget what 
they are and whither they are going: 

They are cruel, stupid, childish, undeveloped. 

I have to report: 

That they even forget that they are merely movable 

parts of the Earth, 
And that everything that inheres in Earth inheres in 

them: 
That the little ball that blusters so, spouting its seas 

in tempest, and sliding its hills, 
Smothered in storm and lightning, and plagued with 

an uncertainty of flood and thirst. 
Hot, cold, distempered, risky. 
Is repeated in each one of them: they too full of 

weather and disaster: 
Primitive, perilous . . . 



51 



IRepott on tbe UManct, Bactb 



The which forgetting, 

Produces a certain surface of calm and harmony: 
Yes, for a while : 

Then the explosion: then crime, breakage, 
battle . . . 

I have to report: 

That projected by Earth, as Earth by the skies, for 
large purposes and splendid adventure, 

They sidestep, try to evade, escape their destinies: 

Do their utmost to reduce life to a mechanism that 
works by itself: 

Leaving them free — for what? Communion with 
Earth? 

Vision of heaven? Probing of self? 

Why no: free for stupefying stimulants and mem- 
ory-sponging joys . . . 

I have to report: 

That they are very cunning indeed : 
They have builded larger than themselves: 
Giant cities have sprung from their pigmy hands: 
Their engines are excellent: 
But to what use do they put their tools? 
Tut! peacock-feathers, and the well-stuffed gullet! 

52 



IReport on tbe planet, Bartb 



I have to report: 

That though the Earth is rich, yet most of them are 

very poor: 
In bitter want: 
Curious, this childish snatching of things from each 

other I 
Greed is their stupidest sin! 

I have to report: 

That while there is much excellence in the love be- 
tween man and woman, 

And the tender love toward children, 

They so clutch and claw one another that love stales 
into indifference or irritation: 

Greed I greed again ! 

I have to report: 

Hypocrisy rampant, and hardly any one passing for 

what he really is : 
But advertising himself as something quite other: 
Yes, anything to succeed! 

I have to report: 

Slights, rebuffs, insolences unnumbered, 
Nothing run right: but everywhere insidious theft 
and pilfering: 

53 



IReport on tbe planet, Bartb 



And every one sentimental : glossing it all over with 
a call to love for mother, for children, for one's 
country. 

I have to report : 

And, Powers, this is what puzzles me : 

An Earth so absorbingly interesting, so electric in 
spite of its dullness, so joyous in spite of its 
pain. 

That, were I not compelled to make my cosmic ex- 
aminations, 

I should love to live there, say, three-score ten years 
of their life ! 



54 



Hmmoral 



IMMORAL 

T KEEP walking around myself, mouth open with 

amazement : 
For by all the ethical rules of life, I ought to be 

solemn and sad, 
But, look you, I am bursting with joy. 

I scold myself: 

I say: Boy, your work has gone to pot: 

You have scarcely enough money to last out the 
week: 

And think of your responsibilities ! 

Whereupon, my heart bubbles over, 

I puff on my pipe, and think how solemnly the 
world goes by my window. 

And how childish people are, wrinkling their fore- 
heads over groceries and rent. 

For here jets life fresh and stinging in the vivid air: 
The winds laugh to the jovial Earth: 
The day is keen with Autumn's fine flavor of hav- 
ing done the year's work: 
55 



•ffmrnoral 



Earth, in her festival, calls her children to the crim- 
son revels. 

The trees are a drunken riot: the sunshine is daz- 
zling . . . 

Yes, I ought, I suppose, to be saddened and tragic : 
But joy drops from me like ripe apples. 



56 



CreeD 



CREED 

A FTER all, 

-'*• With clean laughter and a hard soul, 
I greet the morning. 

My darkness was full of disturbance: 

The philosophers and the scientists and the doctors 

were wrangling together: 
And each grew angry with greed for my soul, 
And angrier to find the others also greedy for me. 

My friend, the Mechanist, eyed me : 

"You are dull," said he, "if you reject my be- 
lief . . . 

Life, sir, is a rearrangement of atoms : 

You are a machine: 

The Universe is purposeless: 

It contains no more to-day than it did a millennium 
of eons ago. 

My chemico-physical friend: this is the fiat of 
Science." 



57 



"Thanks," said I . . . 

"This relief is great. 

Good-by, Old Ethics, and my Immortal Soul : 

This machine is quit of you." 

"Hold," cried a voice. 

And my friend, the Finalist, buttoned me . . . 

"Who rearranged the atoms'? 

Who wrought the eye that beholds the shows of this 

Eardi^ 
Who wrought Man, the highest'? 
There is a plan working out: 
We move toward 'one far-off divine event' . . . 
Believe this, or die damned." 

"Excellent," said I . . . 

"I am glad to know I am planned and moved . . . 
Farewell, Originality, farewell, Responsibility — 
Use me, O Rearranger of Atoms !" 

"Both wrong," came a sore whisper: 

And behold, there stood friend What-do-you-call- 

him^ .... 
At any rate he thus delivered himself ... 

58 



Cree& 

*'Ahem, of course, as it were, the world 's a ma- 
chine, 
But then, too, purposes invade it . . . 
It 's on the make ... 
What make? who knows? 
It may go here, it may go there . . . 
A vital impetus impels it, 

A sheaf of tendencies expands through it . . . 
There is no goal . . . 

Eternal Creativeness, Variability, Newness: 
The past bound up in the present makes the future, 
And Man 's the crest of the wave." 

"Greatly obliged," said I, 

"Come on, Old Vital Impetus : 

Come, Herd of Tendencies : 

Let 's start a fresh creation to-morrow morning." 

"Eh, what is this?' 

Alas, I was confronted by an antique Dualist : 
"Do you not know you stand in the clutch of Error? 
Rash man, the World 's not One, and neither is it 

Many : 
The World is Two : 
There 's body and there 's spirit, 

59 



<rtee& ______^ 

And superimposed on the natural order is the moral 

order ... 
There is a moral world : an ethical framework : 
And to its laws your soul must bow . . . 
Be ethical, or be damned." 

"Good God I" I sighed, 

"How simple . . . 

I '11 study the code and know just what to do . . . 

An end of worry I" 

A dozen voices spoke at once: 

"You say good God . . . remember the children of 
Abraham ..." 

"Nay," said another, "Christ was the Lord Incar- 
nate . . ." 

"Christ? Buddha!" 

"Buddha"? Mahomet, the only true prophet of 
Allah!" 

"Tut! it's all a neurosis: a mere subconscious im- 
pulsion I" 

"Oh, no, it 's economic determinism !" 

"Matter? There is no matter ... the world of 
sense is illusion . . . 

Thought is reality." 

60 



Greet) 

The night grew dark and full of disturbance . . . 
And I knew then that the philosophers, the scientists, 

the doctors and the divines 
Were all greedy after my soul . . . 

It was well that morning broke, 

Well that revolt swept through me, lifting me up, 

Well, that after all, 

With clean laughter and a hard soul, 

I could greet the morning. 

"Friends all," said I, 

"Perhaps Life is what you each say it is . . . 

But I suspect that Life is both less and more . . . 

I suspect that the human mind is a very limited 
organ . . . 

I suspect that it loves simplicity, that it loves to re- 
duce multiplicity to unity, 

That it craves graspable formulas and prescriptions : 

And I suspect that the formula of each man is the 
man himself: 

The sort of breakfast he cares for, and the kind of 
pride he indulges in, 

And his happiness or misery in his love-life, 

And the kind of impression he wants to make . . . 

61 



<rtee& 

A healthy belly rejoices that it is chemico-physical, 

And a hardy ego enjoys being a god, 

And a methodical card-index soul is glad of a 

planned-out universe, 
And a wild gipsy believes in chaos, 
Whereas a child longs for God, the Father. 

"Now, friends all . . . 

I reject none of your formulas: no, not a one . . . 
They are excellent tools to do excellent work . . . 
And then, too, they keep you in pride and healthy 

defiance : 
But as to accepting them : that is another matter . . . 
Rather will I discover what I am. 
And accept those tools which will help to unfold me 

further in selfhood. 
And such things as I need for my own pride and 

my own tasks. 
And I will accept them very gingerly. 
Not as Truth, my friends, but as Tools alone . . . 
And one only thing shall be a dogma with me : 
Namely, that little is known : and that I know very 

little . . . 



62 



Creet) 

"So I will write me songs that please my own soul, 

And walk in the garden and smell the roses and 
forget-me-nots, 

And drink a cocktail, if I have a mind to, 

And give myself to the mystery of this enveloping 
world, 

Send out my feelers through the dark to the un- 
touchable stars, 

And the almost equally untouchable men and women 
around me . . . 

Sensitively respond to the weather, and the splen- 
dors of art, and the life of cities, 

And find me a woman who meets me with glad re- 
sponses. 

And love mightily . . . 

"And I shall be as little afraid of laughter as of 
tears . . . 

Read philosophy and science with zest, and test them 
out against the smell of honeysuckle . . . 

Ponder on the universe, and then kiss the lips of my 
adored one . . . 

And I shall be unafraid of the mightiest pur- 
poses . . . 

63 



Cree^ 

If I see for my soul an unfolding, I shall strive to 

unfold it so, 
And if I find friends who can share the good of life 

with me, I shall bind them to my heart . . . 

"For, dear Doctrinaires, 

I too am greedy after my own soul : 

And I believe Life is greater than any of our state- 
ments about it, 

And I believe in Experience, as a realization beyond 
the power of thought, 

And there is something in me that can arise and laugh 
freshly after defeat, 

Yea, even after absorbing intricate logic of philo- 
sophical web-spinners . . . 

"A man before these mysteries, 
A man against vastness and multiple Life, 
With awe, reverence, impudence, gaiety, anger, de- 
light, 
I give myself to the glories of this day, 
I move on by the North Star of Self. 

"And even if this be creed also, 
I say, let it be so . . . 
It is at least my own I 

64 



Cvcct> 

"So, after all, 

With clean laughter and a hard soul, 

I greet the morning." 



65 



H jfuneral 



A FUNERAL 

I HEARD the preacher preaching at the funeral: 
^ He moved the relatives to tears telling them of 
the father, husband and friend that was dead : 
Of the sweet memories left behind him : 
Of a life that was good and kind. 

I happened to know the man: 

And I wondered whether the relatives would have 

wept if the preacher had told the truth: 
Let us say like this: 

"The only good thing this man ever did in his life, 

Was day before yesterday : 

He died . . . 

But he did n't even do that of his own volition , . . 

He was the meanest man in business on Manhattan 
Island, 

The most treacherous friend, the crudest and stin- 
giest husband, 

And a father so hard that his children left home as 
soon as they were old enough . . . 
66 



a jfunetal 

Of course he had divinity: everything human has: 
But he kept it so carefully hidden away that he 
might just as well not have had it . . . 

"Wife I good cheer I now you can go your own way 

and live your own life ! 
Children, give praise ! you have his money : the only 

good thing he ever gave you . . . 
Friends ! you have one less traitor to deal with . . . 
This is indeed a day of rejoicing and exultation! 
Thank God this man is dead !" 



67 



Sait) tbe Sun 



SAID THE SUN 

SAID the sun: I that am immense and shaggy 
flame, 
Sustain the small ones yonder: 
But what do they do when their half of the Earth is 

turned from me? 
Poor dark ones, denied my light. 

A little brain, however, was on that other half of 

the planet . . . 
And so there were lamps. 



68 



Ubc VXninspivc^ Xaborer 



THE UNINSPIRED LABORER 

SO, you love the "uninspired laborer" — 
He is "near to Earth" : 
You feel mystically for him, and fight his cause. 

Fight his cause if you will: 

Live with him if you desire: 

But do not place him above the first of men; 

Do not put him above the level of the noble and 

great . . . 
Nay, nor above yourself . . . 

For if your religion is the uninspired laborer, 

Because he is near to Earth, 

Why not go nearer to Earth, 

Back through the process a bit further, 

And love and make a religion of the animals? 

What is happening is that you have much of the 

beast in yourself, 
And you therefore make peace with yourself 
By calling the beast a god. 

69 



East an?) Wicst 



EAST AND WEST 

A MODERN speaks: 

■\ X TTIEN shall the parted be joined 

' ^ And the far grow near? 
The voice of the Sphinx in starlight in silence of 

the desert, 
The voice of the East: 

THE SPHINX speaks: 

When Earth became Man, I became Mother of 

Man . . . 
My inscrutable mystery enfolded him in a second 

journey in the womb, 
And the Earth-born became Man-born : flesh became 

spirit. 

My sons are Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster and Jesus : 
Conversion-names . . . 
Images that lifted the eyes of man up, 
That turned the passion of Man from procreation 
to self -creation. 

70 



Bast anO Wicst 



The rivers that flowed to the phallus now branched 

to the brain: 
Man overflowed his animal : god was born. 

This is the Treasure I found: 

And this I guard . . . 

The engulfing centuries engulf me not : 

Asia and Egypt sit with eyes inward, and lips pray- 
ing: 

They crouch like a Sphinx: they brood like a 
Buddha : 

They save and guard this sacred Fire against Time : 

They save it, waiting the coming of the Hero . . . 

Then shall be the Marriage of the Earth: 

Then million-scattered humanity becomes Man . . . 

In ancient days, 

The Hero departed, my religions on his lips. 

But his own blood too full of young quivering fire 

to bide with me. 
Oh, adventurer. Earth-lover, warrior-man . . . 

He saw not the stars as Creation: 
He beheld the North Star as a guide for his 
ship . . . 

71 



Bast anC> Wicst 



He sought no Holy Land: 

He searched for Eldorado . . . 

The lightning held no vision for him . . . 

He seized it to turn wheels . . . 

He converted mystery into action . . . 

Not the tall spirit he sought, but a longer reach of 
his body : 

Derrick-arms, wheel-feet, steel-muscles, engine- 
heart, 

And electric voice and ear and telescope-eyes. 

I sit a Giant of Soul : 

And the Hero has become a Giant of Flesh . . . 

When shall the Giants mate? 

When shall my Soul enter his Body, 

And his Body enfold my Soul*? 

When shall Earth and the Life of Earth be one*? 

THE HERO speaks: 

Mother, and Woman of Mystery, 
Eternal Feminine, 

I stand on the ultimate Western shores, and behold, 
I see the East before me . . . 
72 



i 



Bast anD XKDlest 



And so I pause . . . 

My helmet of steel I push back from my eyes, 

I blow from me great mill-smokes that dim my 

vision, 
The hurry of my engine-winged feet is slowed and 

stopped, 
And my blackened hands in the foundry fires rest 

from their cunning. 

My quest has led to strange ends : 
Truly I went forth eager to throw the hills, 
And break in the bare-back seas, 
Yea, to harness and bridle the fire-nostriled 
Earth . . . 

When I stood naked, flesh without claws or fangs, 

A voice the wind drowned, 

An eye stopped by opaqueness, 

A strength unequal to the horse, 

I said I will become a colossus of tools . . . 

I will order the fecundity of the Earth that I hunger 

not. 
Clothe myself that I freeze not; 

73 



Bast ant) "meet 



Ride water, fly land, dart speech, light darkness; 
Commandeer the secrets of the Stars and the Earth- 
sealed Past . . . 
And stride the world, its Conqueror . . . 

Much have I wrought, a miracle-worker . . . 

And yet there is confusion and darkness in me . . . 

Festering slums, slaughter, and restlessness . . . 

Behold, I have created the Machine, and it has be- 
come my Master : 

As a slave I drudge and suffer to keep the wheels 
turning . . . 

Have I gained the whole world, and lost my own 
soul? 

Have I bound myself over to my giant body? 

For my own mind, Science, begins to deny me . . . 
Even that which discovered and seized the powers 

of the Earth, 
Looking further, probes Life, 
And begins to whisper of the Soul . . . 

And now, O Sphinx, on my western outpost shores 

I question you again . . . 
What is the answer? 

74 



Bast ant) Mest 



THE SPHINX speaks: 

You have failed to conquer the Conqueror . . . 
You have failed to conquer Yourself . . . 

Turn to where there is Love, turn to your Soul, to 

me . . . 
Come, O Hero, back to the Mother of the East : . . . 
Come, my Lover . . . 

A MODERN speaks: 

I heard East call to West, and West to East . . . 
I see a vision of the bridal emerging . . . 
I see a vision of planetary man . . . 

Man shall have One Body, One Soul . . . 
The East brings Soul, the West Body . . . 

Behold, then a mighty inner strength m a network 
of Earth-engirdling outer strength . . . 

A being that is the Planet, with telegraph nerves. 

With winged mobility, and profound knowledge. 

With interchange of life and tools. 

With conqueror's strength over the brutality of 
Earth, 

75 



Bast anD XPOledt 



With leisure, wealth, and beauty, 

All harmonized with the flowing life of the heavens, 

The flood that rolls in the inner reaches. 

The unity of the creative urge, the spirit of man, 

And the body that makes of vision, deed, 

Of dream, action . . . 

Thus shall the god beyond man be born. 



76 



Ubc Mise 



THE WISE 

f^ LORY 'S not otherwhere but here: 
^^ Yonder stars may be more horrible than the 
worst of Earth. 

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance: 
The wise grows it under his feet. 



77 



Cit^ of m^sscit 



CITY OF MYSELF 

AA ANY travelers, welcome home ! 
"^ " ^ I am the city for little travelers : the hospitable 

city: 
Come, happy crowds of atoms, and be housed and at 
home with me. 



Come from the fields, the seas and the hills, 

Drop from the air, 

Oh, atoms that make my body, that gather so cun- 
ningly. 

That out of your rhythmic and ordered millions 
make this metropolis, myself! 

I shall never understand you : 

Never know by what wisdom you choose your tasks : 

Why some of you become gray brain, and some red 
blood. 

And others this flexible cartilage, and others secre- 
tions . . . 

Never may my imagination behold you in your num- 
berlessness, 

78 



Citi? ot /ID^selt 



Nor guess at your divisions of labor, and your mar- 
velous brotherhoods . . . 

How do you choose this government, my will? 

Who appoints the communication system, my 
nerves ? 

Who places the earnest workers in every part? 

WTiose wisdom has arranged the transportation 
scheme for food and waste? 

Who inaugurated this clever street cleaning depart- 
ment? 

Yea, and this central dynamo-plant, my heart? 

Sometimes pestilence sweeps this city. 
And there are strange fires that play over it : 
It has its holidays of rejoicing, its twilights of melan- 
choly, 
There are days of terrific toil, there are nights of 
sleepiest peace . . . 

But forever there is more brotherhood and union 

among its millions. 
More harmony of universal work, 
Than in London town, or Paris, or that lusty tall 

giant. New York . . . 



79 



Citi? of /iD^self 



And lo, here is my city, right here composing me at 

this moment, 
Compact, small and usable i 
My feet under the table, my right hand holding a 

pen, 
My eyes peering down on these emerging words . . . 

Is n't it all unbelievable? 

So natural in its effects, so impossible in its causes'? 
So lately come into existence, so soon to vanish as 
all cities have vanished*? 



80 



Bartb*Bount) 



EARTH-BOUND 

1\ yi AN, full of the passion of his little Earth, 

-^ " *■ Finds it hard to detach himself and become a 
part of the stars — 

To view aside from his desires and dreams the burn- 
ing and flaming of the universe — 

To see the immensity of the drive of life, and how 
minor is his fate in this major action. 

He looks into the night and says : Behold, there is 

Peace, there is Silence ! 
Not so! There is flame, creation, winged speed, 

and the roaring of new-made worlds ! 
Peace? Where is it*? Only in our own victories 

over ourselves. 
Only in moments of rest after battles. 

Death will surprise him who longs for his infancy 

again — 
The silence and hush of the womb. 



81 



XTbe Mcaft Sball ifail 



THE WEAK SHALL FAIL 

'T'HE weak shall fail: 

^ Leave them to their own devices and they fail : 
Prop them up, and they will crawl with crutches : 
Or give them light, and they will not have the cour- 
age to see themselves in the light. 
And to dare according to the light. 

Strength breaks conditions, yea, and makes them: 
Strength uses props to escape from props: 
Strength, given the light, sallies out to the undared 
day . . . 

Yea, it is hard doctrine : 

And though the strong may understand and love the 

weak, 
As a father his children. 
And though he shall harness them to work and give 

them happy hours. 
Little else can he do: 
In the end, as in the beginning. 
The weak shall fail. 

82 



Sl^mbols 



SYMBOLS 

A LL that we see is a symbol of the inner life — 
-'*■ Images by which we may think of the spirit- 
ual . . . 
What precipices of Earth steeper and deeper than 

those of my own soul *? 
What clouds of the sky more darkening than those 

of my heart"? 
What sun so dazzling as the light of my spirit"? 

There were two of us, woman and man, going about 

the city . . . 
Solid streets, our two solid bodies, sunshine and 

busy crowds . . . 
But in reality, together we walked through swamps. 
Went diving down dizzy abysses. 
Climbed Himalayas for a vision of love. 
Hunted in thick jungles, dragged in abandoned 

floods. 
And fought like eagles in mid-heaven . . . 



83 



Ube planetary Hnimals 



THE PLANETARY ANIMALS 

'T'HESE little planetary animals, men, 
* Dressed in fluent and elastic garments, 
strangely upright and movable, 
Busily working, shaping, constructing on the broad 

surfaces of the Earth — 
By mighty slopes, on great waters, in deep gulches — 
Working their own will as against the will of 
Nature. 

Patient, passionate, absorbed — 

Hardly aware of background — 

Working for appetite's sake, survival's sake — 

Yet actors in an invisible drama. 



84 



Olt) Sorrow 



OLD SORROW 

T MET old Sorrow on a New England hill . . . 
^ The West wind dancing down the slope, quite 

naked, 
Skipping, slapping the cheeks of grapes. 
And knocking apples about. 
And pulling up handfuls of seeds out of gardens and 

scattering them wide, 
Shocked old Sorrow . . . 

"Young man," she said to me, 

"If you think the heart is less wistful after visions 

Than when Egypt builded 

Or Greece made song. 

If you think human destiny less tragic than on 

Gethsemane, 
Or death easier than Rachel found it. 
Look in your own heart, or your neighbor's . . . 
Gray I gray! gray! 
Even as the Atlantic on the cliffs of my roaring 

coasts ..." 



85 



®l& Sorrow 



Just then the naked West wind 
Yanked my hair back and kissed me with cider- 
fragrance on the lips 
And sprinkling me with hayseeds 
Went laughing down the lane . . . 

"Sorrow," I said, 

"I deny nothing . . . 

Suicide, murder and child-beating are still in fashion, 

Poverty finds the milk-bottle empty and the rich 

contemptuous, 
Injustice, jealousy, lust . . . 
All, all, freely granted . . . 
Yet something new, 
Something I can't define, 
Something that dances. 
Something that shines . . . 
In the core, something that laughs, blowing us into 

to-morrow." 



Nevertheless old Sorrow sat there on her New Eng- 
land hill: 

While the strong youths of the region hurried away 
to the West. 



86 



**/lDan, Born ot Moman" 



"MAN, BORN OF WOMAN" 

T^HEY sang of old of a Heaven as big as the sky, 
•*■ And a Hell vast as chaos : 
And they said the far-rolling multitudes of the dead 

were swept to these empires : 
There, radiant in the gaze of the Lord, 
Or, charred in the Devil's blazings, 
Millions on millions of Earth's flesh-children were 

crowned or consumed . . . 

But now I go examine my breathing body: 

And in my mind's hand hold Hamlet-like my 

skull . . . 
Lo, in my hand the real Heaven, the real Hell . . . 
In this spheroid shape, the profound consciousness: 
Huge as nether night is Purgatory's domain. 
And fanning further than the sun is the morning of 

Paradise. 

Ferried were the dead through mother to child and 

from age to age 
By Charon, the seed of man : 

87 



'/iDan, 3Born ot Moman" 



Ferried were the bodies of the dead : 

In the flesh of my mother I changed from the float- 
ing cell, bequeathed by the dead, 

Swiftly into the reptile, the ape, and so into man . . . 

This little skull was distilled from a vanished sea 
of flesh . . . 

And so with the bodies the selves of the dead were 

ferried : 
Into this skull have the far-culled multitudes of the 

dead been caught: 
Serpents coiled and f anging their prey : 
The he-wolf stalking his mate when the spring moon 

silvered the jungle: 
The gorilla crushing blood to his hairy breast: 
Savages dancing rites round the fires of primeval 

fastnesses : 
The arena-ringing Greeks, the sea-called Vikings, 
Scalds of the North and prophets of the sand . . . 
And the humble untableted millions in the fading 

chasms of time . . . 

Down in Purgatory, the dead are sealed : 
But they are I : 

88 



*/IDan, Born of Moman'* 



Of a sudden in the night the torment of (Edipus 

astonishes my heart, 
Or possessed by Othello a hissing jealousy stuns me : 
Lo, at times I sweat with the guilt of Judas, 
I laugh with torturer Nero's mirth : 
And at times I am stark savage, demonic in the night 

of the world, 
And at times the lusting beast, hunting a mate . . . 

But upward opens the golden dawn of Paradise in 

the morning: 
And there are the radiant dead : they are I : 
Lord, my heart sings when Joan wakes in my soul : 
My heart lifts its gates, and they are uplifted when 

David walks on the slopes of my spirit : 
My being rolls psalms of great praise when dream- 
ing Buddha opens his eyes. 
And the drums of new conquests greet the arising of 

Charlemagne, 
And spring is here where Jesus treads. 

Lo, what am I then? 

This poor little trafficker on the streets of noisy 
trade'? 

89 



*/IDan, Born ot Moman" 



This tiny eater and drinker that goes garbed to the 

table? 
This atom of tinkling pain and mirth mocked by the 

stars'? . . . 
No, I am Heaven and Hell, housing humanity : 
I am the race : I am the Earth : I am that I am . . . 

God am I of the creation weltering within me . . . 
God to seize on these snatches of song, these broken 

chords, these shattered tunes, 
And shape a clear sharp music of Self. 

Then let me build on what I am : 

Let me build, not on the dream of myself in the 

hearts of my friends, 
Not on the strange sweet saint that I think I should 

be. 
But on this that I am ... 
Let me build in the foundations of my flesh, 
A strong beast, a lithe savage, a human man . . . 

Let me rear no palace of foam built on a tranced 

illusion : 
But begin with the solid Earth, shaping my animal; 
He shall be the least of me: but he shall be himself: 

90 



J 



**/ffi)an, JSorn ot TRUoman'* 



In clean joy drinking and eating of the life of the 
Earth, 

And mating lustily . . . 

And for the savage in me I shall grant a range and 
a scope: 

I shall let him go fight in the raw battles of com- 
merce, 

And join in the sports of men: 

I shall let his obscene laughter have its earthquake 
hour, 

And grant him to be a loafer shuffling slow-footed 
in the mob. 

Then greatly shall I seize on the powers of Hell and 

Heaven 
To do my god's job, the shaping of a man . . . 
The mind, the luminous bath of thought: 
The friend, the lover woven into all flesh: 
The toiler, shaping strange tools: 
And that true creation of self that is wrought in the 

service of others, 
And by the passion for creating souls . . . 
If I am the race, I must work for the race : 
If I am the Earth, I must shape to the purpose of 

the Earth: 

91 



*/IDan, 3Born ot Moman** 



I must open my being to the flow of the life of the 

planet and the suns, 
And give forth myself with the heat and love of 

those fires . . . 

Not beyond the stars, 

Not beneath the Earth, 

But here in this tiny skull are Heaven and Hell . , . 

Such is Man, born of woman. 



92 



UWO /IDUStCS 



TWO MUSICS 

'T'HERE are two musics : 
* A backward music and a forward music 



The one is of childhood : 

It has the rhythm of finger-sucking: steady and 
sweet. 

The other is of manhood : 

It is more like the rhythm of advancing Nature, 
A vague harmony blending diverse pulsings; 
Full of daring, a little unsatisfying, 
Prompting to action, not to dreams. 



93 



H 0irl in tbe Subway 



A GIRL IN THE SUBWAY 

TIER colors called the eye: 

■^ * A green silk skirt, and a black coat, with a red 

rose dangling from it: 
A black hat tied under the chin with velvet ribbon : 
A drugged face, childishly pouting, with long- 
fringed meaningless blue eyes. 

Suddenly she opened a letter, and read it through, 

And returned it to the envelope. 

Then she gazed dreamily with tear-filled eyes. 



94 



TLbc ®ut&oor /iDotion picture Sbow 



THE OUTDOOR MOTION PICTURE 
SHOW 

O ED and green lamps were strung along the four 

■■■ /^ walls of the stockade, 

Back, on the rocky hill, and the up-sloping street, 

and in the tenement windows, 
Crowds were watching the pictures slapped against 

the side of night. 

It was uncanny to see this pictured intimacy, 
Men and women kissing and hugging in the open air. 
Among crowds of stolid, speechless people ; 
Yea, to see writ in the heavens, as it were, 
The inner life of this quiet audience of Earth: 
To see what goes on under these masks 
Flashed forth in action, 
All in the warm and wet-edged night. 



95 



Moobs 



WOODS 

TX/ALKING in woods 

^ ' Gray in my memories, 
I heard the sighing of women, 
But no one was there. 

The afternoon was so still that I could hear the 
prickle of pine-needles fluttering on dead 
leaves . . . 

I looked closer, and I too sighed . . . 
The trees themselves were women, with silent arms 
held over my head ... 

I was very tired, 

And I longed again to be a child, 

Quit of the stem struggle of manhood . . . 

So I went deeper into the gray woods . . . 

Then horror rose in me : 

And I could not move, nor close my eyes to the 
vision . . . 

96 



XPdioobg 

For about a tree coiled a serpent, 
And bound to the tree by the serpent, 
Struggled a child . . . 

The child was dying . . . 
He sank against the warm tree-trunk, 
And the murmuring tree reached down to enfold 
him . . . 

I saw then a cleft in the tree, 

And the child trying to enter into that fastness . . . 

then I knew he would die, smothered, in the tree- 

trunk. 
Or die in the coil of the serpent, 
And as in a dream one at last shrieks, bursting 

through bands of silence, 

1 shrieked: "His neck: strangle him!" 

The child turned, seized the slippery neck, and 

twisted it . . . 
I drank my own blood in that battle, 
Though still I was moveless . . . 



97 



Woodg 

Then I bore the child out of the woods in my arms, 

But as we came to the meadows, 

He melted, as it were, in my body . . . 

And I laughed, a man again . . . 

The gray woods of our memories are perilous 
When we retreat from battle. 



98 



ZTbe Centaur 



THE CENTAUR 

TN a pleasant valley of childhood, 

•^ Where the brook splashed rock to rock, 

Hidden by oaks and beeches, 

I came across a strange animal 

With a boy's face . . . 

It was really a Centaur: 

All that was horse was shaggy, fleshy and hot, 

With rearing legs; 

But the neck was the slim fresh torso of a boy, 

White and curved, 

And the dark head had beauty . . . 

I stood, gazing, away from the sunlight that pierced 

the treetops 
With lances of light, breaking silver in the singing 

waters . . . 
And as I watched 

I saw the boy turn against the horse. 
And push with his hands the shaggy back, 
And tear it with his teeth, 

99 



XTbe Centaut 



Groaning, gnashing, 

While the legs leaped about and the tail swung 
lashing back and forth . . . 

I groaned myself, fearing the boy's death . . . 
He struggled, sank, arose, and with a great cry, 
As if from a rock, sprang forth suddenly, 
Splitting the Centaur . . . 

Then I marveled : 

For the body of the horse stood there, a weeping 

woman, solemn and shawled, 
And the boy, turning away from her arms, 
Was a man walking in sorrow. 

It was thus the Mother lost her son. 



100 



Ubc (5ra^ /IBotbers 



THE GRAY MOTHERS 

TN an ancient sunless temple, 

^ Where even at midday the stars are seen through 

the roof, 
The gray mothers stand, they whose eyes see too 

deep: 
For out of them all flesh comes, and all the future. 



Together, though they are millions, they breathe up 

one ghost, 
She whose blood-drops are suns and planets, 
The Mother of the Heavens. 

Now ever a mother comes to the temple door 
And sends, with kisses, and tears too, a little boy or 
a girl into the meadow ... 

So to the meadow ran 

A white-bodied girl, sweet with loosed golden hair, 

Ungarmented, singing . . . 



101 



Ube Gtai? /iDotbers 



Where the new buttercups fluttered on. the wild 

grass slope 
She flung herself down, 
And played with stones of every color, 
And snatched at butterflies . . . 

The Spring sun warmed her, the wind cooled her. 
Her muscles played under the whiteness, and her 

teeth gleamed as she laughed . . . 
Yet even in her laughter was longing . . . 

All at once her hand playing in the grass 
Touched sharp a cold slippery snake 
Basking in the sun . . . 

Even as she shrieked, the serpent coiled, struck and 
stung her. 

She walked back slowly to the temple, 

And now she stands with the gray mothers, 

Part of the ghost whose breath of flame is the 

stars ... 
Part of the vanished that yet is here. 



102 



miiiiw<iL»mwiiw wiMiwwxwwaritwwjaM 



steps ot tbe Sft^ 



STEPS OF THE SKY 

/^~\NCE by a strange power I walked up the steps 
^-^ of the sky . . . 

Each step was as tall as from Earth to the sun, 
A cliff of ether. 

I climbed a thousand steps, scaled up a thousand 

skies. 
Until the wheel of the Milky Way 
Was only a ring on the finger of the Old Woman . . . 

For at that great height 

I saw I was in the hollow of a hand, 

And in shadow through the outskirts of vastness I 

saw dimly the body. 
Hugely naked, sprawling in space . . . 

She lay, many-breasted. 

And at each breast a Universe drank of her milk. 



103 



XTbe Bncirclina 



THE ENCIRCLING 

T LEFT the street and the sun, 
^ And down through the little door I went into 
myself. 

Now I had the ages to choose from . . . 
And all worlds waited ... 

I saw shelves of red rocks, 

Raw bones of the Earth sorrowful before dawn, 

Risen from shadows . . . 

And on the rocks struggled in each other's powerful 

arms 
A naked man and a naked woman : 
As if two rocks assailed each other. 

Dawn began gray: 

Each cliff was like a face sleeping in a flat shawl, 

Or as a drowned face in a moving water.. 

Then as dawn lightened, 

I saw that the cliffs were an arm, and the rocks were 
breasts, 

104 



XTbe Bncttclina 



And far off a mountain was the face of an ancient 

and wise woman . . . 
Against the breasts the man and woman laid them 

down, and drank like babes . . . 

And now I saw that the heavens were a large, dusky 

and silent woman, 
Who stooped with swarthy arms, holding the Earth, 
Earth holding her children in the dawn . . . 

I climbed slowly over the ledges, 
Until in the woman's arms, I saw a smaller woman. 
And in the smaller woman's arms, one yet smaller. 
And yet another, and another, the smaller embraced 

by the larger, 
Till eyesight failed . . . 

I grew weary, laid me down : 
Arms enfolded me . . . 
I was the tiniest of them all, 

Circled in arms that were circled in arms back to 
the circling arms of the mother heaven. 

I drank of sun, of planet, and ether . . . 
Until I too rose and wrestled on the rocks with a 
strong naked woman. 
105 



TTbe Bncitclina 



After which, 

Suddenly I saw the streets, the sun, 

And I beheld myself in buttoned clothes, and in felt 

hat, and laced-up shoes . . . 
Crowds were about me . . . 
But I knew that they and I were merely as little 

doors 
That opened backward into the Mother. 



106 



Ube HDvcnturer 



THE ADVENTURER 

\ /AST is the Creation . . . 
^ The Milky Way but a ring of fire . . . 
Then where does Earth twinkle within it"? 

With its night and its day, 
The damp weathery ball smeared thin with life, 
Dropped many skies of space in the deeps, 
Rolls through the elemental powers . . . 

As grass, a creature lifts from it — 
That brave gentleman, 
That excellent adventurer, 
That hardy devil — Man . . . 

He sees the scoffing grandeur of the stars so great 

that he is nothing looking up. 
Yet he sings, praising Life, 

He chants, praising dreadful and engulfing Night, 
As if in his tininess he yet were the god of the world 

that crushes him . . . 



107 



Ube HDventurer 



Ha, behold, in the float and bulk of the Universe, 
The immense materiality of the skies, 
Star-knotted ether. 
Yea, this Creation, 

Behold, the tiny creature it has produced . . . 
The two-legged dancing flicker on its rolling planet, 
Somewhere down there, or up there, lost in the rush- 
ing of the suns . . . 

Yet Creation holds this creature forth, 
Even as its highest : 
Its loveliest, strangest, vastest. 
Its whimsical, beautiful child . . . 

His naked body against the hills or dipped in ocean, 
This is the heavens with all their glories in brief 
epitome ... 

Vastness shrinks ever smaller to grow great . . . 
Chaos rolls into suns, suns drop fragments that are 

planets. 
And the mammoth shrinks into man . . . 
This little eye, this infinitesimal nerve, 
This sensitive tip of the world. 
This skull, with its cupful of brain, 

108 



Ube HDventurer 



Into this narrow house creeps the whole of Creation, 
And thus becomes human . . . 

Glory then to man, 
The brave fist that shakes at heaven, 
The lips that laugh at death, 
The heart that praises Creation ! 



109 



RHYMES 




Sonnets 



SONNETS 



j\ TIGHT on the 'bus-top, and a thin mist played 
■'• ^ Down the deep city: rolling cumbrously 
We passed through double rows of lamps which 
made 

The avenue a winged victory: 
And gazing there, I wondered where I was: 

Why stone-hemmed, mist-closed, man-surrounded, 
I 
Went wheeling on a planet that, alas ! 

Wandered engulfed in some infinity. 

But as this strangeness of my flesh came to me. 
And death was real, and life a dream, I gazed 
Into my soul, and saw your image : through me 
A glory swam, to star-heights I was raised : 

Have I not seen you brooding when you furled 
Under your wings the vastness of the world*? 



113 



Sonnets 



II 

PVERYWHERE, everywhere they whisper it, 
■'— ' On car, in shop, and where the corners meet, 
Or on the sea, or in the quarry's pit, 

And speaking, eyes grow wistful and lips sweet. 
As suddenly they glimpsed a Paradise: 

And "he" and "she" you hear, and "thus he said," 
And this one softly laughs and that one sighs. 

And on old stories are their starved hearts fed. 

When were we robbed of glory in time's dawn. 

The glory that descended to the birds'? 
So that since then we seek a light withdrawn 

And feed, not on the flame, but on sweet words*? 
For all the unhappy world, in lieu thereof. 
Whispers the dream, whispers the dream of love. 



114 



i 



Sonnets 



III 

TTARK, how my heart sang in the morning watches 
•■■ -^ As from dark sleep I opened into light 
And found the world wild with the wind-blown 
snatches 

Of music and sunshine, and the flight, the flight 
Of life down the shadowy streets: and my heart 
bounded 

Laughing to be alive, and marveling why 
Young June, as by a rind of glory rounded, 

Struck with a radiance all reality. 

Then as I came up from the bath of slumber. 

Sun-fresh, and all my brain and heart awoke, 
Laughing, my soul began a golden number 

Of song, and two suns through my heavens broke, 
Then knew I why the blowing and the blue 
Struck through me, splendor. Darling, I love 
you. 



115 



Sonnets 



IV 

A PERFECT day draws to a perfect end : 
'**• The heavens are shining and the city lies 
Against the sunset like a smiling friend 

Listening to talk that is both sweet and wise: 
And in an easy revery in the park 

The people, clean of toil, sprawl at their ease: 
The day dissolves into the comforting dark: 

Peace, O ye People, whispers heaven, Peace ! 

Above old heads the silent skies are sown 

With moon and stars : and girls are drawn to boys : 
The hour is full of the faint but poignant tone 
Of echoes of old loves, old dreams, old joys . . . 
Memory in her arms gathers all Life, 
And love lays gentle hands on pain and strife. 



116 



Sonnets 



WE die like children, children smothered out, 
And wailing at the dread of the unknown, 
And trying by every loophole, in the rout 
Of panic, to escape : yet we were sown 
Like the perishable seed of grass and grain. 

And the very secret of our glory lies 
In this wild transcience : to be raised and slain 
Is Life's way to evolve the growing skies. 

Our greatness grew on death : were the Past not dust 

It were a yoke to hold us back : so we 
For our children must be downward thrust : 

"Make way for Life," cries Life: then why not, 
free, 
And like fine gods, accepting Life's intent. 
Will, when our time comes, our own descent*? 



117 



Sonnets 



VI 

nPHE wind is blowing dreams to me. It eddies 
■'• Through pools of green, with shadows flying 
and sun: 
Now for a moment the great oak-bough steadies, 

Then rocks in the gale, and rustling laughters run 
Along leaping leaves: I hear the varying blowing 

Of whistles, great cries torn away and thinned : 
Life comes in gusts, and with its wild heart glowing 
The city is like a runaway in the wind. 

Dreams ! We are at the prow of the plunging ship. 
Swerving through blue seas, and we lean to the 
foam. 
We roll to the rolling leagues, we mount and dip, 
Sun-winds swing us, and the sea is home. 

Home of the wanderers, home of the untamed 

rovers, 
Home, under star and sun, of runaway lovers. 



118 



Sonnets 



VII 

OOLD must we be and unafraid of delight; 
•■— ' Sorrow's slaves are ever slow to rebel: 
What, do we love our chains and the grim night? 

What are we afraid of, who can tell"? 
Is it the Dark One coming to destroy 

Laughter and love with death, with doubt, with 
pain*? 
But I tell you that the heart of love is joy 

And by Joy's lightnings death himself is slain . . . 

Creation struggled long millenniums 

To wake into laughter: but the great tide moves 
Ever toward Joy : and Laughter's empire comes 
Through Man's great daring and his godlike loves: 
O let us send our spirits through new deeps 
With all that shines and sings and laughs and 
leaps. 



119 



Sonnets 



VIII 

A A 7E take the wings of morning over the moun- 
' * tains 

And call the darkened valleys up from fear: 
Why, cry our trumpets, are ye stopped, ye foun- 
tains'? 

Why, O ye millions, are ye stooped and drear*? 
Lift up your gates, and let your gates be lifted. 

And draw the everlasting doors apart . . . 
For look, the scenery of life is shifted: 

He sings with joy who has a warrior heart . . . 

Risk all for love : depart from ancient sorrow 

And follow the sun unto its highest slope : 
Plunge with your whole soul into the new morrow, 
And make your wings strong Joy and splendid 
Hope: 
By such a flight against impossible odds, 
Though ye be slain, yet ye shall go as gods. 



120 



Sonnets 



IX 

T SING the new word Joy unto the people : 
* I would I were a herald like the sun, 
A bell-ringer in the world's high steeple 

To fling and ring this message to every one: 
Better to die than live a life that 's sullen, 

What is your heart's flame for, save to be spent? 
Go study the grass, the wild-rose and the mullein; 

Are they, creation's children, with pain bent? 

There 's love for all, there 's joy to overflowing. 

Morning and earth and the night's heart o'errun 
But only the bold young god in his glad going 
Shall win from these the might of Earth and sun : 
There 's joy in pain for him who is creating, 
There 's love in hate when daring hearts are 
mating. 



121 



Sonnets 



X 

/''^ REEN is the radiant world as if it gloried 
^-^ In my darling where she walks among the corn : 
And though Earth, kissing her feet, with joy is 
hurried. 

It hurries gently that she be safely borne : 
Around her dance the girlish summer hours 

Adding their loveliness to her fleet grace: 
She crowns the fields with beauty and she dowers 

Earth and the sky with a new human face. 

How from the Earth has she emerged and wanders 

As if the planet stole forth, seeking love? 
A sense of tears troubles my heart that ponders 
Over this marvel : but as I watch her move 
She lifts her love-lit eyes to mine, and I 
Grow radiant as the Earth, the fields, the sky. 



122 



Sonnets 



XI 

T KNOW how God was born : I know what yearn- 
ing 

Made him divine: man shaped him out of man: 
For from his heart flowed love without returning: 

All human love was under Earth's dark ban : 
And finding neither man nor child nor woman 

With understanding and enfolding love: 
He wrought of phantasy the Superhuman : 

All-Wise, All-Loving: not beneath — above! 

I know the ecstasy, the adoration 

That rolled in hymns, and moved in mighty 
prayer : 
I know the joy of union with Creation: 
I know the bliss devout believers bear : 

All that man longs for I have found in thee : 
Art thou not life? And what else may God be? 



123 



Sonnets 



XII 

NT OW golden October, crowned with the grape, is 
-'■ ^ singing, 

While the javelin winds against the woods are 
hurled, 
Glorious from the blue the sun is flinging 

His rain-rinsed brilliance on the vivid world: 
And the wine-mad month in red and gold regalia, 

Scattering leaves, sowing valley and hill, 
Goes out dancing to death in a Bacchanalia,. 

Laughing, singing, for she dies with a will. 

Fully lived has the year, so she dies in laughter : 

For all that spends itself, is ready for death . . . 
O my beloved, let us live hereafter, 

Pour ourselves in each other, spend our breath, 
Love in the uttermost loving, so that when 

quaffing 
Death's black liquor, we toast one another, 
laughing. 



124 



mbat Sings tbe Bartb? 



WHAT SINGS THE EARTH? 

WHAT sings the Earth to the Sun? 
Lover, sings she, 
Thou art that glorious one 

Who lifteth radiantly 
My life unto the light: 

Yea, so I overrun: 

Such love is infinite, 

Beloved Sun . . . 



What sings the flower to the bee? 

Lover, she sings, 
The kiss thou givest me 

Giveth me also wings, 
That I, by scattering wild, 

Gain immortality: 
Such love begets the child, 

Beloved bee . . . 



125 



Wbat Sings tbe Bartb? 



What singeth woman and man? 

Love, love, sing they, 
A sun art thou to span 

And pierce my waiting clay : 
And wings that fly past death : 

And more : for through thee moved 
Am I, as breath through breath, 

O my beloved ! 



126 



Sttn*2)own 



SUN-DOWN 

/^ OLDEN- WINGED, the sun 

^-^ With trailing clouds, sinks under 
The windy heavens run 

As seeking western cover: 
And in the garden wander 

The loved one and the lover . . . 
Darling, day is done: 
Golden- winged, the sun 

With trailing clouds, sinks under. 



127 



IRise, tot tbe 2)a^ 



RISE, FOR THE DAY 

p ISE, for the day 

^ ^ With splendor lights the moimtains, 
The stars in hoods of gray- 
Have stolen away like nuns 
Before the sun's bright fountains . . . 
Behold, a city lies 
Triumphant in sunrise, 
Behold, the gold 

Spilled on her peaks of granite . . . 
Creation's song is rolled, 
Creation's song is rolled 
Around the glowing planet. 

Rise, for the morn 

With glory wakes the valley, 

On golden grandeur borne 

The lifted corn, the pine 

To the loud sunshine rally . . . 

Up ! the shouting gale 

Gives the world all-hail. 

Up, up ! the cup 

128 



IRise, tor tbe Wa^ 



Of joy is overflowing . . . 
Earth, sky are one dew-drop, 
Earth, sky are one dew-drop 
In glad abysses blowing . . . 

Rise, and put on 
A joy your soul adorning, 
You darling of the dawn I 
The night is gone, and blows 
The radiant rose of morning . 
Come, for the world 
Is only half -unfurled. 
Come, come ! the hum 
Of longing Earth is moved. 
For heaven's lips are dumb, 
For heaven's lips are dumb 
Till they sing you, beloved! 



129 



Uvvst witb tbe Sea 



TRYST WITH THE SEA 

'T'HE legless beggar-man sat in his chair, 
■*" There where the gray sand runs to the sea; 
I stopped for a word in the wintry air, 

And he pointed a young girl out to me . . . 

Her eyes were a dull blue, wistful and wan. 
Her light hair curved round her oval cheeks . 

In a deep trouble she wandered on 

As one who knows not the thing she seeks . . 

Out of the cramped and the crowded rooms, 
Out of the careless streets she came. 

Out of lost love or the noise of looms. 

Trailing a shadow of lonesome shame . . . 

Was it a tryst with the sea she kept*? 

Soon she was lost where the sands ran out: 
So I asked the beggar-man where she crept 

Whom never a soul seemed to care about . . . 



130 



trrsBt wttb tbe Sea 



And the beggar-man told me girls go down, 
When twilight falls, to the rocks of the sea . . 

The slow tide mounts and the young girls drown : 
So the gray ocean sets them free. 



131 



WAR 




1914— an& Hfter 



1914— AND AFTER 
I 

T AM caught helpless in the suffering of the 

'^ world : 

Wherever I turn I find the person next to me tor- 
tured ; 

Drop by drop his heart bleeds : 

Women weep in the lonely darkness, the bleak men 
stare at the unrelenting night, 

And children cry for healing. 

What may the heart-hungry do"? 
What may the poor do. 

And they whose dreams go down in the wastage of 
the years? 

Perhaps I, too, have thrown away my life for noth- 
ing: 

Hours and years of dream-scourged labor and bitter 
action erased and lost: 

Yet I am a man : 

I have my compensations: 

135 



1914— ant) Htter 



But these others'? 

These without faith, without hope: these that are 
children, crying for comfort: 

What help for them? what healing? 

And now million-numbered worlds go mad and de- 
stroy each other: 

Lost, lost, are the innumerable . . . 

Little I, what am I, that can do nothing? 

I am caught helpless in the suffering of the world. 



136 



19X4— ant) Hfter 



II 

T WANDERED over the landscape of Europe: 
^ The cities were clean and proud, and the masses 

were tame and servile: 
The gardens were sweet: there was a quiet comfort 

in the evening pleasures : 
Gigantic were the steel cranes in the harbor where 

the mammoth shipping lay : 
Splendid the pipes of the congregated mills poured 

their black vapors over the towns . . . 

Peace ! This was Peace ! 

But Europe was merely a pleasant landscape over 

Hell: 
And Civilization seemed as a woman grown calm 

and mellow : 
As if she had forgotten, 
Forgotten Earth which functions not alone through 

the ripening fruit and the tranquillity of the 

grass and the contemplative mind, 
But also through storm, flood, fire and volcano. 



137 



19X4— ant) Hfter 



Woe to the nation that looks for peace in quietness : 

Policed peace is impending war : 

Well-ordered cities, and beautiful gardens, and 
smooth manners avail not: 

Starved hearts, starved freedoms avail not : 

Slavery in the mills and the streets avail not: 

Neither is it of avail to compress the individual into 
the tight mass: 

To drill the population in obedience, silence, and 
drudging toil, 

All these make war the alluring adventure, the es- 
cape: 

Lo, the primitive, starved, roars in the jungle, snaps 
all chains, and hunts hungrily for blood . . . 

Welcome then. War! 

Welcome this rebirth of the world, in terror, havoc 

and desolation: 
The woman, Civilization, gives birth to a child . . . 
This is the birth-year of the world . . . 
Wonderful shall shine the little one . . . 



138 



1914— anD Htter 



III 

1 

TJANG the hills with black, 

^ •*■ And blacken the early violets with the blood 

of the young: 
What want we with a Spring of fragrant farmlands, 
Gardens, smokes of the brush, 
And healing rains? 

Let the birds, the winds and the sea 

Sing no more the loves of mating, and the marriage 

chants of Spring . . . 
But mournfully pipe dirges of broadcast tragic 

death. 



What want we with fhe Spring? 

We have cast in roaring foundries the dark-bored 

steel. 
And like gods have snatched the chemical might of 

the Earth, 
And devised a killing and a crime . . . 

139 






1914— ant) Bfter 



Out of the murder of our hearts, we have wrought 

great havoc . . . 
Sinking of ships at sea, and the toppling of cities. 
And the mowing of living hosts! 

What want we with the Spring? 

3 

Patiently the millions wrought: 

With sacrificial hands, and suffering vision. 

Chaos became a city, a ship, a school . . . 

Steadily the gates of pain were battered, 
And the gates of darkness assailed, 
And the waste of spirit striven with. 

And the young went forth crying : Spring I Spring I 
Hope dawns I A glory I 
We are shaping a marvel in the skies ! 
Man becomes god: this is the morning and the first 
day of Creation ! 



140 



1914— ant) Htter 



4 
Spring*? 

The hosts contend together: 
Cities are become dust-heaps: 
The young god, the Creator, 
Has turned fury and fiend, the Destroyer . . . 

Strange sowing of seed goes on : 
This is the year when we sow the Earth with the 
flesh of young men . . . 

5 

Black! black I black! 

We have blasted away in a day, 

Our own children . . . 

We have gone mad, killing the young, 
Slaying the hope of the world . . . 

Now youth leaves his dream and his toil and his 

quickening love 
To kill or to die . . . 
O short-lived generation! 
Debauch of blood! 
Folly and sin! 

141 



19X4— ant) Htter 



No more of it ! 

Take away Spring, and give over the planet to a 

moon's death, a frozen death: 
Our Earth deserves extinction, 
With her rotten breed of men . . . 



So I cried, and in rage and grief went forth through 

the city, 
The New- World City of Peace . . . 



8 

I passed a prison . . . 

Broken men decayed in the damp. 

I passed a mill ... 

Children and pale women peered wistfully from the 
windows . . . 

I passed a hospital . . . 

Human wreckage sunned there beside the morgue. 

I walked through stinking slums . . . 
Children nosed in the garbage. 

142 



t9l4— anD Htter 



9 

Then I went to the home of a friend, 

And found darkness . . . 

Husband and wife were slowly slaying each other: 

Slaying with love. 

The woman whispered to me : 
"God ! could I go to the war I go to the war and be 
killed!" 

10 

Then I looked in my own breast . . . 

And I said: What war is this I am bitter against*? 

Behold, the poison of my soul that destroys peace 
about me, 

Behold, the bayonet of my hate, and the fumes of 
my bestiality: 

The contending armies of lusts and shames and in- 
trigues : 

The sentries of dark sin . . . 

In this little world of Self I saw the big: 
In my own breast I found war and disaster and ship- 
sinking. 
The death of faith and of hope . . . 

143 



t9l4— an& Hfter 



Behold, in myself I found Man: 

Who since the beginning has been this advancing 

conflict ... 
Ever thus . . . 

11. 

Then is it marvel no peace is on Earth? 
Where is the Man of Peace? 

Shall I be crushed then by the horror of blood and 

carrion? 
By wholesale carnage? 

12 

Dark in a world of darkness, I left the city; 

And then I saw, 

O ancient and new miracle ... 

Resistless, laughing at death, overruling decay, 
Earth silently lifted life . . . 

Impassive and calm lay the heaps of the hills, 
And steadily rising. 

Green pierced through, and the soil steamed, and 
the birds nested. 

144 



1914— ant) after 



There was the farmer-boy plowing, 

And there the young wife airing the house, 

And close to the handled mud the absorbed faces of 

children . . . 
Lo, thought I, Earth holds to her hope . . . 

13 

Then I greeted the hills . . . 
O let them be mantled with green, I said. 
And let beauty hang from the boughs . . , 
Increase the laughter of children, 
String the cities with color and glory, 
Lift a music . . . 

Once were the heavens a blackness. 

Then blazed a sun forth . . . 

In the Earth's blackness, O tragic struggler, roll 

forth your splendid sun : 
Fight darkness with light. 
Destruction with creation. 

14 

Have cities toppled and ships been sunk? 
Build! build! 

145 



1914— ant) Hfter 



Is youth slain'? 

Beget new children of flesh and of toil ; 

Beget a new self of splendor . . . 

Have hopes died? 
Kindle new ones . . . 

Has man fallen*? 
You, man, arise . . . 



146 



1914— ant) Hftet 



W 



IV 

OULD you end war? 
Create great Peace . 



You rave at the war, do you*? 

Do you know that the war has struck in the face 

with a fist 
A race of clerks, 
And turned them to men? 
The flabby boys of London died athletes at 

Ypres . . . 
The Lords of large estates proved in their deaths 

equality . . . 

Vast millions have ceased to whimper over the coffee 
at breakfast, 

And ceased from family cowardice. 

And from industrial bondage. 

And now the mother gives the son she feared to re- 
lease for a night's adventure, 

And the man who demanded safety first leads the 
charge from the trenches. 

And life is so real that men are ready to lose it . . . 

147 



1914— an& Httet 



For in war they have found Peace : 

The Peace with oneself, the being used for a great 
purpose, 

The releasing of the spirit in the heart, and its vic- 
torious sweep in the soul, 

The assertion of manhood, which means courage, 
hardness, discipline and adventure. 

Such is Peace . . . 

But that which we call Peace*? 

This monstrous machine that weakens millions in 

factories. 
This lust of money for its own sake : to swell one's 

social stomach larger than one's neighbor's . . . 
This poor little personal strife and family pride. 
This softness of muscle and cowardice of spirit . . . 
Is this Peace*? 

Is merely keeping alive, Peace'? 
Better the young die greatly than live weakly . . . 

Would you end war? 

Create great Peace . . . 

The Peace that demands all of a man, 

His love, his life, his veriest self; 



148 



1914— anD Htter 



Plunge him in tiie smelting fires of a work that be- 
comes his child, 

Coerce him to be himself at all hazards: with the 
toil and the mating that belong to him : 

Compel him to serve . . . 

Give him a hard Peace: a Peace of discipline and 
justice . . . 

Kindle him with vision, invite him to joy and ad- 
venture : 

Set him at work, not to create things 

But to create men: 

Yea, himself. 

Go search your heart, America . . . 

Turn from the machine to man, 

Build, while there is yet time, a creative Peace . . . 

While there is yet time ! . . . 

For if you reject great Peace, 

As surely as vile living brings disease. 

So surely shall your selfishness bring war. 



149 



®ut 



OUT! 

/^^OME, abashed Self, admit one thing: 
^-^ You have been indoors too much of late . . . 
You should have been out wrestling with the sun, 
Or running races with the rolling Earth . . . 

Where 's the old smell of you, when, nostrils di- 
lated. 

You were drenched with sea-salt and soil-odor? 

Where 's the lusty tang of your voice, cleansed by 
strong winds'? 

Your sun-burnt cheek? 

And the animal magic of your eyes? 

Out of the house with you ... 
Into the water ! Into the sky ! 
Over the hills! 



150 



2)anctng Bo^s 



DANCING BOYS 

nnWO boys dancing at bedtime . 
^ One of them was mine. 



They were naked: of shapeliest grace of body: and 

lightness of foot . . . 
Waving their hands, crooking their knees, they wove 

in and out. 
With improvised pattern, spontaneous design . . . 

The yellow hair of one, the black hair of the other, 

shook free and wild: 
Their cheeks glowed: their eyes sparkled: their lips 

opened in laughter: 
Like little savages, like Indian boys naked in the 

moonlight. 

Two boys dancing at bedtime . . . 
One of them was mine. 



151 



Bartb's Xaugbter 



EARTH'S LAUGHTER 
TPHE laughter of the Earth: such are children. 

When I come to meet you, I hear your glad shout 

from behind the house, 
Then you come running, bursting with ecstasy, down 

the footpath to greet me . . . 
(Ten minutes later, you have forgotten that I am 

there I) 

When we walk together, 

I shrink, in my mind, to your size: yea, shrink 
straight into you: 

And I see the miracles . . . 

Then is the laying of shingles on a roof a world- 
event. 

And waiting for a locomotive to pass, a crisis in 
life . . . 

Ice forming in the swamp is a mystery worthy of 
study. 

And the flight of a bird a wild wonder . . . 

The laughter of the Earth: such are children. 

152 



^be IRew Got) 



THE NEW GOD 
I 



TTE comes in darkness 



Bringing the day-star in the glance of his eyes. 



O you constellations of the night, 
Twelve-charted heavens of the crowds of kings, 
O burning stars, 
From your eastern depths the young god of the 

Earth 
Rises, and drowns you in his glory. 
And ascends our heaven 
Our fire-bringer, our delight of life, our god, our sun. 

He comes, slayer of night. 

And the sea shouts, lifting her white arms to his 

quick embrace, 
Continents of blossoms open and drink his kiss: 
Earth's children, the sons of men, waken, and go 

forth to toil: 
The lovers waken, and turn to each other amazed 

at the laughter on their meeting lips, 
153 



XLbc mew <3o& 



So in the midnight watch, 

My soul, longing. 

My soul, longing as a sky of ineffectual stars long. 

Greets my god, my genius. 

Where he rises as the day-star in my depths, 

Opening the future. 

Lifting vision, 

And I see what self may be 

Beyond, beyond man . . . 

So self's night-sky gives the birth to a sun: 
The god that I follow. 



154 



XTbe IRew Got) 



II 

DACK-GAZERS have half-gods: 

■*-^ They kneel to Egyptian Earth with Karnak- 

thoughts, 
Or go ways of Olympian youth . . . 
Dragged are their souls to the gods behind man, 
And kings of the dead . . . 

Peace, they cry for, and burial, and the mother's 
womb. 

I too love old fountains : 

I am lulled too by the tidal song of womb-waters: 
David haunts me with his singing in the desert, 
And old wizards send their spells on my tired heart. 

I am nothing loathe to drink Earth, Sun and Stars, 
To sniff henna, and taste manna, and sip mead; 
I know the riches of catacombs. 
And I too feed on the great dead. 

But for me this is breakfast before battle. 
And I know, by my soul's thirst, I must rise up 
from sacrificial caves, 
^55 



Ube IFlew (5o& 



I must go from the magic back-world, 
To the fore-world, and beyond the world, 
Where sweat falls on the waters, and blood manures 

the soil. 
And greedy flesh fights round me. 

But I see beyond the battle. 

Past smoke, fumes and fallen soldiers. 

Visions that make Greece but a promise, 

And Karnak but a hint. 

And where the mighty men of old 

Are but children to the gods beyond man. 

To the self that calls me. 

His shining is in the future. 

His face gleams and goes in the visions of the night : 
But seeing him, I follow: 
To him I pray: 

He is my god, and my greatest god, and I unfold 
toward his divinity. 

A Future-God is mine: 

He is my child, in whose consummate maturity I 

shall stand as his child: 
He calls: I follow. 

156 



Ube IRew aob 



III 

T PROTEST against the engines, 

* And I am at odds with their father, the chemist : 

I am against all who see only the machinery of the 

heavens . . . 
Their gods are the gods of the naked savage, 
Even sticks and stones . . . 

Though an idol be wrought of steel it is still an 
idol . . . 

Splendor is in machinery: 

The wheeling of the star-bolted car of the heavens. 

And the interplay of muscles in an athlete's arm. 

Such make an arena of glory 

For the works of man, . . . 

But among the engines one goeth with a divine fore- 
head, 

He is nimble to slip among the rods, and cunning 
to cast them: 

He drives: the floods part and foam before his 
prow . . . 

157 



Ube IFlew Oob 



He has builded a street in space, and hung a city 

in the mid-heavens: 
His roadside is the Earth, and his lamp the sun: 
In this street, on this road, he laughs though the 

stars are silent. 
He sings, though ocean sleeps . . . 

I dwell inside his radiance: 

It is a region of visions and a sky of wonder: 

From a certain darkness in time timeless I have 

opened into this glory: 
Here I laugh, sing, and weep: 
I am he, and he is I . . . 

My god is the living god, even Life . . . 
My street is Earth and my tower-light the sun: 
Engines are the quickener of my steps, 
And with sticks and stones I build. 



158 



XTbe IRew Got> 



IV 

TN the white slant of day I wander; 

* Sunlight reveals me as only another man in the 

fields ; 
Perhaps he smiles at the fluttering thrush whose 

store of song is spilled; 
And the hills regard him as one more stone in their 

swallowing spaciousness. 

But this man is a walking radiance, 

His eye, by magic, envelopes the sun-spiked heavens 

and the silent hills : 
And his spirit's eye reaches beyond the fire-painted 

sky-blue 
^\nd snares the stars with the lasso of a thought . . . 
The morning is in him : he walks large with it. 

He brings news: 

He carries across the field with him the garnered 

greatnesses of dead millenniums, 
Man, beast and Earth are carried: 



159 



XTbe iFlew (3o& 



And he grows among the corn swifter than corn 

grows, 
Flinging beyond the hills, beyond the sun, beyond 

the future, 
Vision of a god . . . 

He is that god's seed swelling with that god to 

be . . . 
When that the seed opens out, 
And it blossoms and bears fruit. 
Watered and warmed by ages new. 
This seed shall be that god. 



160 



Ube mew Got) 



V^ E morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells, 
* And with dew water the walk's dust for the 

burden-bearing ants: 
Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells 

of gold 
And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . . 



O now I see by the opening ot blossoms, 
And of bills of the hungry fledglings. 
And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects, 
Morning's business is afoot: Earth is busied with a 
million mouths! 

Where goes eaten grass and thrush-snapped dragon- 
fly^ 

Creation eats itself, to spawn in swarming sun- 
rays . . . 

Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on lite . . . 



161 



trbe mew (Bob 



But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats, 
Like a well of light moving in morning's light, 
What is this garmented animal that comes eating 

and drinking among you*? 
What is this upright one, with spade and with 

shears'? 

He is the visible and the invisible, 

Behind his mouth and his eyes are other mouth and 
eyes . . . 

Thirster after visions 

He sees the flowers to their roots and the Earth 
back through its silent ages: 

He parts the sky with his gaze : 

He flings a magic on the hills, clothing them with 
Upanishad music, 

Peopling the valley with dreamed images that van- 
ished in Greece millenniums back; 

And in the actual morning, out of longing shapes 
on the hills 

To-morrow's golden grandeur . . . 



162 



Zbc IRew Oob 



O ye million hungerers and ye sun-rays 

Ye are the many mothers of this invisible god, 

This Earth's star and sun that rises singing and 

toiling among you, 
This that is I, in joy, in the garden, 
Singing to you, ye morning-glories, 
Calling to you, ye swinging spears of the larkspur. 



163 



Ube l^ew aot) 



VI 

OONG swung the spheres 

^ And their travel was a harmony . . . 

The sun with rosy fingers twanged the strings of 

seven planets . . . 
And every seed and animal 
Was caught up in the song . . . 
And struggle was but the minor key 
Tuned to the spheric strains. 

Man lifted up, 

His feet caught in that music, 

But from the cyclic rhythm he broke striving to be 

a god . . . 
So half of him was planetary 
And half of him was man . . . 
And self 'gainst self made harsh discord 
Against the heavenly song . . 

Man shall be song 
When he lifts beyond the planetary, 
When he travels away from the dark Earth with 
the beast lifted by love, 
164 



Ube IRew 6o& 



And all of him is human 

In rhythm he has wrought, 

And against the song of all Creation 

Circles the song of Man. 



165 



Ubc mew eoD 



VII 

T^HERE is a golden cloud of life 
"*" Blowing : 

Through flesh it blew up the long ages: 
Through me it blows: 

It is a cloud with wings: it is even Life, the 
winged . . . 

Like a bright storm that cries "Beyond! Beyond I" 
It hurried the hosts of bleeding flesh away from 

their slumbers, 
It tore them up from backward creeping, 
And tears on graves, and clashing wine-cups. 
Blowing them out to battle in the creation of a god. 

Lo, now the golden cloud is blowing, 
Through me it blows : 
Though I lie down, it lifts me up : 
Though I turn back, its gale sweeps me into to- 
morrow : 
And when I despair, it floods me with such radiance 
I deny the dark, and hurry on. 

166 



Ubc IRew (5oC) 



W 



VIII 

HY do I not sink down with unending de- 
spair? 

Yesterday I walked the Earth like the shell of a man : 
For neither in the world was good nor yet in my- 
self . . . 

Only a dark fret of dead days flicked me. 

Now morning breaks with rain, 

And I am closed like a withering thing in gray- 

ness . . . 
Why do I not sink down with unending despair*? 

Is it I that was once a seed and shall soon be dust*? 
Is not life two silences divided by one brief suf- 
fering? 
The two ends of a century know me not: 
Unborn, then dead, they find me . . . 

Yet do I not sink down . . . 
For life is a golden wind of wine, 
And it blows through me, and drunk with its glory 
My heart forgets the dark. 

167 



XLbc mew Got) 



IX 

MANY shapes has my god: many shapes and 
strange . . . 

Now he appears in the likeness of a sparrow 

Who building her nest in honeysuckle on the house- 
wall 

Hatches three fledglings where a hand could touch 
her . . . 

And how he is a child, my son, with arms about 
my neck, 

And now a landscape green with the flat radiance 
of evening, 

And now a song I put my soul into, 

And mostly, he is a certain woman 

For the adoration of whom I willingly kneel. 

There where I put my love, I put my life, 

And whatso I touch with fingers of love 

Turns into life, 

And whatso I passionately embrace becomes the self 

I would be, 
And where there is love there is God. 

168 



Slums 



SLUMS 

T N the dusty glare of a humid morning, 

^ The slow horse-trucks get in each other's way, 

The drivers lash and curse, 

The rough-paved streets are sticky with flies, 

The hucksters shout, the fat dirty women scream in 

their crabbed bargainings : 
Filth shoves against filth, and crying children are 

yanked by the arm and told to "Shut up !" 

One sees too the swindle of housing: 

Vast populations are broom-swept into this industrial 

devastation : 
Lying tissues of plaster, brick and wood . . . 
And this acreage swarms with neglect . . . 

The factories vomit their poisonous smokes in the 

very faces of the people: 
Dirt lies where it fell: the forlorn smoke-blackened 

trees shrivel and wither : 
And at dawn, in the refuse heaps, one sees mangy 

dogs like jackals nosing for morsels . . . 
169 



smmg 

Yes, humanity in the gross is ugly, dirty and ab- 
horrent : 

War almost seems as a necessary cleansing of this 
abscess : 

As if Earth had a carbuncle on her smooth and beau- 
tiful flesh. 

Among all the animals, man is the dirtiest and cheap- 
est and ugliest: 

Even a coyote has bright burning eyes, lithe health 
and a clean fur : 

Even a hog is enamoured of sunshine and has a rock- 
strong natural huskiness: 

What have we done with ourselves, we of the race 
of Ulysses, David and Roland, 

That thus in the mass, we appear such rubbish and 
refuse? 



170 



a Wiisc XKDloman 



A WISE WOMAN 

OHE putteth victory into the heart: 

^ She giveth to the groping one a radiant laughter 

as a lance against despair: 
She biddeth the feet of the sorrower dance, that his 
soul may exult. 

With sudden sunrise she illumines the dark face of 

failure : 
And with scorn and ridicule stings to vividness the 

dead heart: 
With defiance she challenges the inert, and with 

cleansing blade of truth she removes twilight. 

She giveth healing, O woman of gentle hands : 

And understanding is the ray of her eye when it looks 

on the mourner: 
With quick smiles she enfoldeth one, and with sweet 

humor she sootheth the ruffled. 



171 



H Wise TRnoman 



She does not lack the whimsical waywardness of a 

woman : 
It delighteth a man's soul, and he would serve her 

willingly : 
Nor is she too wise to be teachable, but listens with 

attentive spirit. 

Because this woman has lived every life that a 

woman may live, 
And been down through pits of pain and agony and 

up on the heights of rejoicing, 
She scorns none, and condemns none: her task is 

understanding . . . 
To her may be told the most terrible secret and the 

dingiest sin: 
She knoweth ere one has spoken. 

Where she dwells : there is quietness and low laugh- 
ter: 

One may almost forget that she sits in the heart of 
the storm. 

And is the wielder of a sword in the combats of the 
human heart. 



172 



B Mise Moman 



Her name is Mother: 

To her run the little children and the larger children 

also: 
There they find wisdom and high courage, and the 

hand of healing: 
For she putteth victory into the heart. 



173 



^an^er tbe Bell 



UNDER THE BELL 

VESTERDAY my body was in the place that 
"*■ glorifies man, 

Yesterday my body was in the city . . . 
In tumult I walked: and I was as a ball thrown 

about — 
Flesh of me chasing through crowded streets, shot 

like a bolt by subway train. 
Drenched in electric lights of night: deafened with 

gaudy music and clamorous tongues — 
But all was Man, Man, Man . . . 

To-day my body is in the place that belittles Man : 

My ears are muffled in the silence of the hills : 

It is as if my eyes had mowed down skyscrapers and 

cleaned away the distance: 
And at night like a fly under a glass bell, 
I crawl, star-stunned. 



174 



j^HM 



^ottinas 



JOTTINGS 

PORTRAIT OF AN INVESTIGATOR 
OF VICE 

JLJIS nails were perfect: 

-*- •'■ They were well-trimmed^ shining and regular: 
But under each was a spot of dark dirt. 

In those nails I saw the man. 



THE MORTAL 

T OVE sings that he is deathless — 
'^ Then dies. 



175 



Jottinas 



TO BE A GOD 

'0 be a god 
First I must he a god-maker: 
We are what we create. 



FERTILIZER 



^TfHE dead fertilize the living: 
"^ Any garden will tell you that. 

Ah, friend, you and I have a neat job for us ahead. 



AND THE GREATEST OF THESE? 



^ Will — not hope. 



J JNDERSTANDING—not faith. 
— not hope. 
Service — not charity. 

176 



jottings 



A PICTURE OF CIVILIZATION 
T TNDER every roof^ a storm. 



A GLANCE FROM THE STREET 

f^NE upon whom silence had descended 
^^ Lay stiff behind the shaded windows. 

When, too, shall I 

Lie stiff and strange, unknown even to myself? 



THEY OF OLD 

^HEY of old washed the feet of the traveler. 
And thus the stranger changed to a friend. 



177 



Ubc xanripene^ OIC) 



THE UNRIPENED OLD 

YOUTH fears death, 
* For the blossom longs to be fruit. 

But the fruit that is ripened by age 
Loves Autumn's west wind 
And laughs, falling . . . 

Only the unripened old fear to go. 



178 



Uhc TKfline^JSowl 



THE WINE-BOWL 

r^AY'S wine-bowl runs over 

-^— ' And the flood of the spilt wine carries 

The sun across its hill-brim. 

Every mute color opens its lips and shouts: 

Behold, I am scarlet, see, I am blue. 

Nay, I am green . . . 

Every hushed bird must open its throat : 

Every heart-vault must swing back its steel-barred 

doors 
And fill with the float of the sun-down splendor. 



179 



•ffn tbe 3furni8be& IRoom Ibouse 



IN THE FURNISHED ROOM HOUSE 

"CULL moons in the mist of the bough-hung park, 
And a wan glimmer on the ceiling of my 
room . . . 



I lie, staring upward . . . 

Above the ceiling a woman is moving timidly to and 

fro . . . 
And above the woman, the mist-filled sky. 
And above the sky, the stars beyond our trou- 

blings . . . 

The stars are not farther from me 
Than you, so timidly stirring. 



180 



Hn tbe Subway 



IN THE SUBWAY 

T any moment arais may go out to me : 
So many friendly eyes meet mine among the 
millions of the city. 



A 



I stood on the subway platform : 

The conductor kept the door open an extra moment 

for two old helpless women : 
He and I saw each other, and knew we both knew, 

and smiled and nodded. 



181 



Ube IBuale Call 



THE BUGLE CALL 

OUNRISE strikes with three rays, calling me from 

^ my bed . . . 

My westward open shutter flashes, and the dirty cur- 
tain fills with gold : 

Across the Park the eastern flank of the granite Arch 
shines white: 

And afar the tip of the topmost tower glints golden 
in the sky. 



182 



Sbine, Xigbts o' XonDon 



SHINE, LIGHTS O' LONDON 

CHINE, lights o' London, far: 

^ And beat, O bells, in the sombre air of midnight : 

My love 's not by . . . 

She 's far away among the Alpine passes, 

Brooding, awake, on me, 

And I 'm in my little room in London, 

With beating bells. 

And the women walking late where the men are 

passing. 
And five point crossings lit with lamps and empty. 
And the rushing sound o' London ... 

O bells and lights — 

My heart 's heavier, heavier now than ever — 
My love 's not by . . . 

She 's far away among the midnight mountains, 
Pale, parted from me. 
And I 'm in my little room in London, 
With grinding wheels. 

And the poor lying dumb on the embankments. 
And the girls stealing bold along the pavements. 
And the drowning sound o' London. 

183 



Sun*mp 



SUN-UP 

A T sun-up, 

** When there was silence, 
From the sea of sleep I was washed to the shores of 

day. 
And opening eyes. 

Unsurprised I found the familiar city about me. 
The long-known Earth, 
The morning light . . . 

Sweetened with slumber. 

Light as a careless child, my heart laughing, 

I tossed the covers aside, 

And bare-footed I strode to the open window, 

To bathe my body in the dawn . . . 

Morning was fresh: 

Wheels turned; birds sang ... 

A smoke went up from chimneys . . . 

And suddenly I knew, smelling the spring, 

That the Creator was at work . . . 



184 



spring's ©rcbestra 



SPRING'S ORCHESTRA 

O UDDENLY Spring's orchestra tuned up : 
*^ Took out flute, fife, oboe, horn and violin, 
And began to scratch and whistle, 
Practising on love-songs . . . 

There came the darkness before dawn: 

Up then went the baton, 

A streamer of light reaching the zenith. 

And there burst out to greet the rising of the sun, 

Creation's music. 

Creation's love-music . . . 

The stage was drowned in electric blue radiance: 
Glisten of wet leaves, flash of plumage, 
Curl of blue chimney smoke, 
Sun on water . . . 

And the drama? 

Too old to be other than what humanity longs 
for . . . 

185 



Spring's ©rcbestta 



All about a pair of lovers 

Walking in the dew 

And in the green and gold of morning, 

Lost, well lost to the world. 



186 



XTbe 2)tscorC> 



THE DISCORD 

A LL goes the triumphant way but Man : 
^^ He lends to the landscape a calculating brain, 
Figuring his crops, 

And a cynic scowl, dreading his fate . . . 
In the year's music he only is the scratched discord. 



187 



Bmong Bnemies 



AMONG ENEMIES 

OOSTILITY is our home, 

-*• * And Struggle our native heath . . . 

The harvest that nourishes us grows from the black 

ground of agony. 
And is sprinkled with tears . . . 
Loneliness is our meat and bitter is our wine with 

calumny and disgrace . . . 

Behold the world we are set in . . . 

It is a marvel that we survive among such perils . . . 

Between flaming and freezing, and the birth and 
death of worlds. 

And the rolling of the Earth unsupported save by in- 
visible threads to the sun, 

Storm, flood and cyclone : and our sensitive flesh 

That dies at a needle-prick . . . 

A million powers fight about us, we in their mesh: 
The war of the heavens and the ceaseless war on 
Earth : 



188 



Hmona Bnemies 



Germ and landslide : beast and poison : yea, and our 

kind : 
And enemies in our souls . . . 
Our own shadows are struggling with us, our fears 

and doubts. 

Yet in this wasp-nest of life, 

Victoriously the generations follow each other, 

And you and I pick our way: warring, aggressive, 

battered, 
Miracles of survival . . . 



189 



Ube J5op 



THE BOY 

A BOY sat there in the gleaming summer : 
''*■ He was supposed to be studying under the maple 

tree: 
But beyond in the radiance of the blooming fields, 

he saw the children running, 
And the loveliness and dazzle and bee-murmur of 
summer overwhelmed him. 

He could not study: he did not know what he 

wanted : 
He yearned somehow to embrace the sky and the 

earth: 
He yearned for love: some warm sweet girl's face 

deep in the hay: 
He sat there, a prisoner, with shining eyes, and 

parted lips. 

Not knowing what he wanted, he became sullen and 

shy: 
He crossed his mother, and fought with her : 
And dulled his desires in a headache . . . 

190 



Dangerous Wa^s 



DANGEROUS DAYS 

r^ANGEROUS days, 
-*— ^ When the lasso of my leaping life, 
Seeking forever for that which it may coil about, 
Finds nothing in the future, nothing in the day. 
And flings backward to some memory of the 
past . . . 

Round this it winds, 

Dragging it forth, a glitter and temptation marvel- 
ous to see : 
And thus, the peril ... 

Yea, these are dangerous days: 

I must go invent new battles for my soul. 



191 



<3irl on tbe Street 



GIRL ON THE STREET 

V^OU are so young, you go so visibly longing: 
* Your attire the plumage of the love-seeker, your 
face with the beauty of wistfulness: 
What do you seek? 

Ah, we all seek: 

But whatever it is we seek, that we shall never 
find . . . 

Poor child! 

You have yet to learn that joy comes from the by- 
products . . . 
Never from the main attainment. 



192 



fln Mbat places apart 



IN WHAT PLACES APART 

\/EA, thought I, in what places apart, 
* The inventor is at work, 
The architect draughts his design, 
The teacher of children leans to the small-sized needs 

and dreams of the young, 
The artist shapes symbols of future life, 
Intense in laboratories the patient searches continue, 
Women carry the unborn. 



193 



HDventutes in Barftness 



ADVENTURES IN DARKNESS 
I 

ACCEPTING THE WORST 

DEADER, 

^ ^ If this happens to be the hour when you are 

drunk, 
Whether with love, success or wine, 
Or excess of good health. 

Nevertheless, for the sake of the facts, agree to this 
with me : 

Life is essentially bitter: 

Nothing turns out as we dreamed and desired: 

We know little, but are pulled through one tunnel 

of emotion after another: 
Behind joy is pain, behind love is hate, behind life 

is death : 
All things are taken from us, sooner or later. 
And in the end, stripped, we are cast aside, 

194 



Hbventutes in H)arftnes0 



Your best friend: how much do you trust him? 

Your deepest faith: how often do you doubt if? 

What have you gained compared with what you de- 
sire*? 

Has that moment never come to you when you cursed 
the fate that made you a man*? 

Daily we read of atrocious happenings : 

And even when man is not cruel to man, man is cruel 

to himself . . . 
Much of darkness is self -begotten . . . 

It is a strange fate that has made us an animal, 

And yet at war with the animal in ourselves . . . 

"Conquer your beast," has been a commandment in 
every creed . . . 

It is our destiny then to overcome what we are, 

And to be something we have never known in Na- 
ture . . . 

The bees and the lions, the sun manoeuvering in 
heaven — no, neither the chemic nor the quick. 

Nothing we know makes this effort. 



195 



Bbventures In Darftness 



It is as if Man has to lift himself by his own boot- 
straps, 
Up, a little above the Universe . . . and why? 

There is a great pother of scientists, philosophers, 

divines and poets 
Telling us with gravity, why . . . 
If they did not all contradict each other, you and I 

might achieve more faith . . . 

We only know this necessity of being other than we 

are . . . 
And as this is a task the incommensurable Universe 

has evidently not attained. 
It is small wonder that we are disappointed in life 

and ourselves . . . 
Small wonder that life is essentially bitter, 
That nothing turns out as we dreamed or desired, 
And that death, and sometimes birth, seem a wilful 

wickedness : as a spite, even, working out against 

us . . . 

Are these the facts'? are they accepted? 

Then, having cleaned the ground of much rubbish, 

we can take to our hearts this comfort : 
To accept the worst, is to become free of the worst. 

196 



HDventures in Bareness 



II 

MAN, THE WONDERFUL 

AN is beyond doubt the wonderful : 
His, among several hundred million worlds, is 
a unique fate. 



M 



The tail of the monstrous Universe, with that tiny 

nub, the Earth, at the tip of it, 
Restlessly slaps back and forth in ellipses about the 

sun . . . 
And on the tail an immense process of parasitism 
Has begotten at last that curio, Man, 
Namely you and me . . . 

Here we are . . . 

Caring little that we are the tip of the tail of a sky- 
monster, 

A star-bellied dragon, 

Caring far more whether a starched collar fits coolly 
about the neck, 

Or whether we see our names in print. 

Or expect to meet a certain woman an hour before 
dinner . . . 

197 



HDventures in Barftness 



And yet we cannot quite clear ourselves from the 
Universe . . . 

It haunts us like a fitful and intermittent ghost . . . 

There is perpetual background of gross chasmic pur- 
poses, primal forces, and monstrous fates . . . 

Now and then the event faces us with our situa- 
tion . . . 

As sickness, as birth of a child, as sudden-taking 
death . . . 

Then we are sharply aware of the mystery of flesh : 
Of our perishable form, and the blood of self to be 

spilt, 
And the even more strange ego, the "I" so apart from 

Creation, back-gazing upon it, 
And the uniqueness of Man . . . 

Did the mountain labor and bring forth a mouse? 

That is nothing . . . 

Creation — of the size of which the heavens by night 
give us but the index and the table of con- 
tents — 

Labored and brought forth Man . . . 



198 



H&ventures in Darftness 



We feel back to it, and know it dimly as the 

Mother . . . 
Even so a child in the womb might feel through the 

cord to the vastness that is enfolding it, 
And the woman that is begetting it . . . 
But what does the sleeping embryo know of the 

mother, or of the purpose of its own dark growth 

in the womb? 

Nevertheless we reason about it: 

We investigate it, and tabulate the results . . . 

We look in vain either through telescope or micro- 
scope to find any other creatures that wear neck- 
ties or spectacles. 

We see nothing in Nature in any way resembling a 
ship's compass or French pastry, 

We search vainly through the Earth for anything 
comparable to a system of philosophy, 

Or a book of dream analysis . . . 

We end where we began: by noting how won- 

drously unique we are, 
How curiously different from that which begot us. 



199 



Ht)ventures in 2)arftness 



III 

BE OTHER THAN YOU ARE 

TT is we who are this creature, Man: 
^ It is we : there 's the wonder of it ! 

It is you, it is I myself, who have come to be alive in 
a body not a bit different from all bodies, 

But in a consciousness strangely different from all 
other consciousness . . . 

By their fruits, shall ye know them . . . 

What consciousness, other than Man's, has begotten 

a daily newspaper, a mysterious religion, a pack 

of playing cards ? 

Why in all the sameness, is this difference? 

How comes it that I use words, woven in rhythms, 

and you understand the words ? 
That I sit smoking a cigar, at a four-legged table of 

painted wood, beside a glass window. 
Trying to worry large vague thoughts into sharp 

concrete shape, 

200 



HDventures in 2)arftnes6 



Trying to communicate with you, whom I do not 
know, who may dwell on the other side of this 
planet, 

And never see this until I am dead*? 

Surely such a play goes on neither in the sun nor in 
Arcturus, 

Nor among the animals of the Earth . . . 

It is as if. Be other than you are, were a command- 
ment laid upon us . . . 

For to be what we are would be to remain larger- 
sized babies . . . 

The nakedest animal of the Earth . . . 

Whereas we are nothing of the sort: we are human 
beings. 



201 



adventures in 2)arftness 



IV 

SCIENCES, PHILOSOPHIES, RELIGIONS 

\/0U see, each is but a tiny cup that has scooped 
•*• up a bit of the Universe, 
Little picture frames, perhaps, laid against the 

skies . . . 
But the heavens are infinite . . , 

Each is true in itself, 

And useful for its own purpose . . . 

But Life is still vast, uncaught, untamed and im- 
measurable ... 

You can go freely on, knowing that having mastered 
every Science, 

Digested each new theory, taken to yourself every 
dogma, 

The Unknown is greater than the Known, 

And probably the world is quite different from the 
conception of the human brain . . . 

Only this is sure: Mystery . . . 

And embedded in Mystery that greater mystery : 

Self. 

202 



Marcb Tltdbt 



MARCH NIGHT 

T SHOOK off the house like a hooded cape, 
^ And came out, free, into the March-blown street. 
The Park was a square basin, deep in red brick walls, 
filling with evening. 

At a lash of the gale, at a sight of the cloud-tattered 
skies, 

As a coat discarded, 

I shook off civilization 

And became wild, 

And my naked soul raced the clouds. 

And the flavor of the Earth was fresh and primi- 
tive . . . 

Who then was she that opened like a blossom beside 

me in the night, 
Grew vivid and vanished*? 

The darkness of her eyes gleamed with fierce secret 

fires : 
She came from what desert? 

203 



/IDarcb tMQht 



The light in a window sent out a hint of romance : 
The laborers returning home were gnomes out of 

caverns : 
And who was she that opened like a blossom beside 

me in the night, 
Grew vivid and vanished? 



204 



IPeace 



PEACE 
T HAVE chosen: there is peace . . . 

Long I wrestled: that was war . . . 

Long I struggled between many courses, timid and 

baffled: 
Now I have chosen : peace has come ... 

I may be unwise, I may be wrong: 
That I have chosen may lead to the gate of destruc- 
tion: 
All the great work may go down. 

But now the fragments of me, each one pushing his 

own way, 
Rush together in binding union, 
And in one rhythm, 
And to one music 
I march, one man : 

Here is strength, and here is calmness: 
I have chosen : peace has come. 



205 



GOLDEN DEATH 




(3olt)en Deatb 



GOLDEN DEATH 

1 

A LAS ! that what I hold in my arms shall 
'**• crumble, 

That these lips shall fall into dust, 
And these eyes gaze no more! 
Where shall I look for my darling and my adored 

one, 
O beautiful beloved. 
When no youth remembers her, 
And only my heart forgets not*? 

Only this : that I too, I too shall die . . . 



Merciless surge of time, who on thy tide has strewed 

us? 
Why are we scattered in scenes of Earth'? 
To the brief and vivid awakening 
The Irresistible forced us, 
To love and the bonds of love ... to love and the 

loss of love . . . 

209 



Golden 2)eatb 



In thy dark hosts of numberless children, O Earth, 
she blossomed, 

Ah, no less than the least sweet trailing honey- 
suckle, 

And though she was hidden, I found her, 

And though she was lost, I came on her . . . 

How shall I unhand her to thee, O Death*? 

how release her? 

3 

She showed me a lock of her golden hair saved out 

of youth. 
But she showed me not the golden-haired girl who 

lived so ardently . . . 
Ah, where has that other gone, and where shall this 

one go? 

4 

1 catch her in embraces, 

I hold her close and closer . . . 

God! could I take her in my soul and be one with 

her: 
A single dreaming, and a single passion, 
And but one dying . . . 

210 



Golden Deatb 



5 

But the west wind sings of separation and scatter- 
ing- 
Death is abroad, taking the year, 
Death is abroad, stealing the hours . . . 
The shutters clatter, and the maples sing like the 

OCa • • • 

I will go out and give myself to the ruining, 
Side by side with the bleak Destroyer . . . 



Sunbursts through leaves, wild geese, 
The grass like hair blown backward. 
What can it mean? 

Why are you not black, O leaves"? 

Why do you sing no dirges, O wind in the woods*? 

But hark, what clarions'? what trumpets'? 

What glimpses of grape-stained faces, 

What dancing of dripping feet'? 

Can it be, my heart, can it be. 

That hugged in the arms of unconquered Death 

Golden October glories'? 



211 



GolDen 2)eatb 



She glories : she goes out in shouts of color : 
Woodland with woodland take hands 
Dancing mad Bacchanals . . . 
The plum is squeezed, and the apple is pressed, 
The grapes are trampled . . . 
Wine ! wine ! the west wind sings, flinging long gar- 
lands of leaves. 

And the year that has greatly lived, goes laughing 

to death . . . 
She slays herself with the bright blade of the west 

wind, 
And with glittering arrows of the frost. 
She decks herself for the burial, in no funereal black. 
But in royal crimson and gold ... 
Her leaves fall with a will . . . 
The air is winey and brilliant . . . 

O sinks not the sun in splendor. 
His down-going the glory of the day? 
So sinks the year, with sunset colors, into the even- 
ing of winter, 
Triumphant in defeat. 
Victorious in death . . . 



212 



OolDen H)eatb 



7 

I am filled with the will of the Earth, 

And the will of the sun . . . 

I have found the answer to Time, 

I have found the answer to Death . . . 

Come with me. Beloved, and put on raiment of joy, 

The sun clothe us, and rain be on our lips. 

And the blood of the fleet year be in our hearts. 

Love overflows the perishing flesh. 

Never a secret sorrow is thine, but behold, I am sor- 
rowful. 

Never a joy is locked in thy heart, but I suddenly 
laugh. 

We are one : let us live to the full : 

Let us go as the year . . . 

Let us put forth flower and fruit to the uttermost 

strength, 
Spend, spend inexhaustible love, 
Till spent we seek sleep. 
And having lived greatly 
Go laughing to death. 

213 



Ubc ffttture 



THE FUTURE 

T AROSE swiftly that night, for I heard a knock 

at my door. 
''Who's that?'' I asked. 
And there answered one on the outside: 
"The Future:' 

''What do you want?" I asked. 
"Your life" he said, "your service, your agonies of 

toiling . . . 
I demand all." 

"And what is the ^ay?" I asked. 
"Death ..." 

We two were silent: the snow fell in the streets: 
The night was still . . . 
"And is that all?" I asked. 
"Yes, that is all . . ." 
"And who shall gain by my travail?" 
He did not answer: I started out. 



215 



